Linking soil management to ecosystem functions and services in oil palm plantings
Description
The rapid expansion of oil palm cultivation in Southeast Asia in the past decades has led to deforestation, loss of biological diversity, poor water quality and greenhouse gas emission . Soil management is seen as one of the key solutions for achieving high yield and other vital ecosystem services in oil palm agroecosystems, such as biocontrol and runoff reduction. These soil management practices in addition will have various impacts on nutrient cycling and soil structure and provide a good model to investigate these links between ecosystem processes and services.
This project aims to identify the key ecosystem service providers and the variability of community structure of soil decomposition under different soil management practices in oil palm ecosystem, then to link the ecosystem function to ecosystem services and goods provided in oil palm landscape, such as soil fertility and oil production.
This project is under The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Project .
Selected Publications
Publications
Hsiao-Hang Tao1, Jake L. Snaddon2, Eleanor M. Slade3, Resti Wahyu4, Jean-Pierre Caliman5 , Kathy J. Willis6 (2013) Effects of empty fruit bunch (EFB) application on soil fauna feeding activity in oil palm plantations. Conference proceedings for Workshop on sustainable management of soil in oil palm, Medan.
Conference presentations
Hsiao-Hang Tao, Jake L. Snaddon, Kathy J. Willis (2014) Effects of Management Practices on Soil Ecosystems in Indonesian Oil Palm Plantings. Southeast Asian Studies Symposium, Oxford.
Hsiao-Hang Tao*, Jake L. Snaddon, Resti Wahyu, Jean-Pierre Caliman, Kathy J. Willis (2014) Effects of Soil Management on Ecosystem Processes and Ecosystem Services in Oil Palm Pantingsin Indonesia. The 4th Conference on Oil Palm and Environment (ICOPE), Bali.
Project Details
People
Funders
Taiwanese Ministry of Education (held by Hsiao-Hang Tao)
Country
Indonesia
Additional Researchers
Dr. Jean-Pierre Caliman, Dr. Eleanor Slade