Agroforestry inside oil palm plantation for enhancing biodiversity-based ecosystem functions

Abstract

At the oil palm landscape, conserving biodiversity and ecosystem processes can range from continuous adjacent forest remnant to tree patches (agroforestry) maintained within the oil palm landscape on steep slopes and riparian margins. The objective of the research was to analyze patched of tree planting inside monoculture oil palm plantation (agroforestry) as one variant of landscape multifunctionality for enhancing biodiversity-based ecosystem functions including soil macrofauna, soil water recharge/retention, and pollinators. The observation was carried out in 2019 in agroforestry islands established in 2013 by EFForTS research project inside monoculture oil palm plantation. At the agroforestry age of 5 years in 2019, the abundance of individual soil fauna in agroforestry plots and oil palm plantation was not significantly different. The infiltration and soil big pores in agroforestry tended to be higher than in oil palm active rows. Pollinator species richness was not significantly different in all plant diversity levels and plots. Similar to its richness, pollinator abundance is neither affected in different plant diversity levels nor plots. The lack of pollinator presence may be caused by the haze from forest and land fires that happened during the research.