Mimosa pudica. ©Bhagyasree VR

The diversity of arthropods in forests offers a range of ecosystem services to non-forest land use categories such as agricultural landscapes. This study is an effort to understand the diverse functional guilds of arthropods in crop fields lying close to evergreen forests. Insect groups that have a role in pollination, pest control and litter decomposition will be sampled and categorised into broad functional guilds based on their feeding habit.

The study offers the potential of comparing data from fields of natural farming and those with intensive chemical farming, expecting a higher diversity in natural farms. In the first phase, the research questions addressed will focus on arthropod diversity in coffee plantations around indigenous communities as well as private plantations. With the involvement of community based monitoring, this study will reinforce some fundamental concerns of chemical farming with the backing of field data on the role of diverse arthropods on pollination, pest control and litter decomposers – all crucial for the sustenance of agricultural lands.

Keystone engages encourages agricultural communities to manage and control the production and marketing of economically valuable organic crops such as millets, vegetables and coffee. Since the fundamental thrust is on agro-biodiversity, there is a need to develop studies that help understand the trends in pollination and fruiting success, natural pest management and soil decomposition in agricultural fields.