Diversity Assessment of Crop and Horticultural Products in Zanjan Province

IntroductionModern agricultural systems have adverse effects on environmental aspects of production and ecosystem health. Loss of biodiversity due to monoculture is one of these adverse consequences. Biodiversity and agriculture are strongly interrelated. While biodiversity is critical for agriculture, sustainable use of biodiversity corresponds to agricultural structure and function, and thus is an indicator for farming practices. Indeed, biodiversity is considered as a vital component of sustainable agriculture from the food security, nutrition, and livelihoods viewpoints. Agricultural expansion and intensification led to biodiversity loss in agroecosystems and reduction in the types and levels of ecosystem services (ES) that people benefit from. Considering the importance of biodiversity in sustainable agricultural systems and variability of agroecosystems in Zanjan province, the goal of this study was biodiversity assessment of crop and horticultural products in this province. Materials and MethodsAgrobiodiversity research, of Zanjan province was evaluated at the county level and it was classified to two groups; agronomy and horticulture. For this purpose necessary data for assessment of biodiversity indices, including cropping area and types of crop and horticultural species for eight county in Zanjan province were obtained from Jihad Agriculture Management of these counties, statistics and information center, statistical report of Jihad Agriculture Ministry, and interviews with experts, managers and farmers during 2016. All crude data entered to excel program and then, some biodiversity such as Shannon, Simpson, Berger-Parker, Sorenson's similarity, uniformity, total number of species and the total number of individuals in all species were calculated according to their equations. Data analysis was performed by Excel var. 2010 and Canoco softwares.Results and DiscussionThe results showed that the highest and lowest values of Shannon index were calculated in Khoramdarah (2.14) and Khodabandeh (0.87) countiesin crop products section, respectively. Also, in the garden products section, the highest and lowest amounts of this index were related to the Tarom (0.99) and Khoramdar (0.62) counties, respectively. In terms of Simpson's index, the highest amount was obtained in Khoramdar county for crop products section (0.83) and Tarom county (0.81) for horticultural products section. The Berger-Parker index had the highest value in Khodabandeh (0.80) and Khoramdarah (0.79) countiesrelated to crops and horticultural products, respectively. According to the Sorenson similarity index for crops products, the highest similarity was found between Abajrood and Abhar, also, the highest level of similarity was found between Zanjan and Mahneshan for garden section. In assessment of the biodiversity indicators with the climatic condition of the Zanjan province, it was determined that in crops products, the biodiversity affected by precipitation and relative humidity, but in the horticultural products, it was strongly influenced by the minimum temperature and relative humidity. The variability of Shannon and Simpson were related to relative humidity, minimum, maximum and average annual temperatures in crops production section, but, these indicators were more related to maximum and average annual temperatures in garden products section. The results of this study indicated that biodiversity indices for some townships were not favorable in Zanjan province.ConclusionThe diagram of the analysis redundancy (RDA) showed that the most biodiversity indicators were more correlated with maximum temperature and relative humidity among crops and gardens products.These results indicated that biodiversity has decreased in many regions and it was reached to lowest value. From this viewpoint, we have to understand the ability of biodiversity to support ecosystems such as agroecosystems and sustainable agriculture ecosystem by providing numerous services. Therefore, educating and encouraging farmers to use of crops types can improve the biodiversity services for suitability of agricultural systems in Zanjan province.AcknowledgementsWe are thankful to Jihad Agriculture organization of Zanjan province, and Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (GUASNR) for all their companions and supports.