Effect of cattle silvopastoral systems relative to forests on the diversity, richness, and abundance of vertebrates

This comparison provides a supplementary vote count analysis for the article, “Meta-analysis shows overall benefits of cattle silvopastoral systems for biodiversity in fragmented forest landscapes,” submitted to the journal Ecological Applications. The meta-analysis examines the effect of silvopastoral systems (SPS) relative to treeless pastures and forests on three measures of biodiversity (species richness, abundance, and diversity) across seven taxa (birds, dung beetles, insects other than dung beetles, vertebrates, plants, soil bacteria and fungi, and soil macroinvertebrates). To do this, we calculated standardized effect sizes (log response ratios) that combine species richness, abundance, and diversity values reported in the 45 scientific documents included in our meta-analysis.

We use this ORKG comparison to conduct a simple vote count of SPS effects based on the values originally reported in these documents, focusing on the effect of SPS relative to forests on vertebrates (n=2 contributions, referred to as effect sizes in the meta-analysis). Both contributions reported no effect of SPS on vertebrates, consistent with the outcomes of the meta-analysis.

Please note that the PhD thesis, “Diversity and structure of bird and mammal communities in the Semiarid Chaco Region: response to agricultural practices and landscape alterations” by Decarre (2015) was included in the meta-analysis, but was not included in this ORKG comparison because it did not meet the platform’s requirements.