Evaluate the potential of bird-friendly cocoa agroforests in Mukono, Luwero and Kayunga districts in Uganda

Details

Supervisors

Lambin, Eric ; Tennhardt, Lina

Faculty

Faculté des sciences

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences géographiques, orientation générale, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

Agriculture is a major threat for biodiversity. Its intensification and expansion, to improve crop production, mainly occur in biodiversity-rich areas such as the tropics and biodiversity hotspots. This leads to habitat fragmentation and reduction, reducing species mobility and ecosystem connectivity. Among the species threatened by these changes are birds. Birds are useful in ecosystems due to the ecosystem services they provide. However, some agriculture types, like agroforestry, can combine yields and sustainability. Cocoa is a crop that can be cultivated under these agroforests, and which have a potentially high conservation value, especially for forest birds. Forest birds are among the most threatened species. As other birds, they provide ecosystem services and ensure ecosystem processes. A way to conserve forest bird biodiversity and cocoa yields would be the creation of a bird-friendly cocoa label. That’s why I tried to evaluate the potential of a bird-friendly cocoa near the Mabira forest reserve, in the Mukono, Luwero and Kayunga districts, in Uganda. To do this, I selected birds present in the study area. Then, I used the model RangeShifter, a stochastic Individual-Based Model, capable to simulate birds’ behaviour and movement in interaction with their habitat. Due to the lack of data, some parameters were estimated thanks to behavioural ecology and literature. Then, I compare birds’ movement and behaviour between two scenarios: the first with bird-friendly cocoa and the second with full-sun intensive cocoa. It appears that bird-friendly cocoa can improve the conservation of less specialised forest birds. Indeed, there are more of them in bird-friendly cocoa than full-sun cocoa. However, the conservation of forest specialist species is not improved by bird-friendly cocoa. They do not go out of the primary forest, except at its edges. This suggests that bird-friendly cocoa criteria proposed here need to be improved to have the potential to conserve most specialised forest species. Bird dispersion show an opposite response with the literature. Less specialised species disperse in more cells under the second scenario than the first. This may be due to their higher concentration in cocoa farms under the first scenario combined to their avoidance of full-sun cocoa under the second scenario.