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Socio-ecological determinants of species composition of crops in homegardens of southern Ethiopia

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Abstract

We explored the socio-ecological factors mediating the composition of crop species composition in homegardens of southwest Ethiopia. For this, eleven kebeles were purposively selected based on the altitudinal variations that range between 1980 and 3271 ma.s.l. From each kebele 11 households were randomly selected and in total 121 households were used for the study. Here, a complete plant inventory was undertaken in homegardens along with the socio-economic survey using semi-structured questionnaire. The effects of altitude, non-crop woody cover, distance to market and type of crop raiders on crop species composition was tested using Adonis function. The effects of altitude, non-crop woody species richness and homegardens distance to forest edge on plant species richness were tested using Linear Mixed Effect Model within lmer function using R statistical program. The effect of wealth status on plant species richness was tested using One-way ANOVA. Altogether, 45 plant species belonging to 38 genera and 25 families were recorded. The crop species composition in homegardens was significantly affected by non-crop woody cover (P = 0.02), altitude (P = 0.001), distance to market (P = 0.01) and types of crop raiders (P = 0.03).Similarly, plant species richness decreased with increasing altitudinal gradient, increased with increasing distance from forest edges and non-crop woody species richness (P < 0.02) and vary among the different wealth categories of the households (P = 0.002). Overall, this study highlights that the conservation schemes need to take into account the socio-ecological factors determining the crop species composition in agroecosystems of southern Ethiopia.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Ethiopia Biodiversity Institute and Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management of Addis Ababa University for financial support during this research work. Our thanks also go to local communities and administration of Ezha District for their willingness to give us information and support during the whole data collection process.

Funding

We would like to thank Ethiopia Biodiversity Institute and Addis Ababa University for financial support during this research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, P.O.Box. 30726, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Emebet Getachew

  2. Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Debissa Lemessa & Ermias Leulekal

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  1. Emebet Getachew
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  2. Debissa Lemessa
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  3. Ermias Leulekal
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Correspondence to Debissa Lemessa.

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Appendix 1

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Table 2 Households wealth category criteria
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Getachew, E., Lemessa, D. & Leulekal, E. Socio-ecological determinants of species composition of crops in homegardens of southern Ethiopia. Agroforest Syst 96, 11–21 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-021-00681-z

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