The big importance of insects and their ecological services to the human kind is a big issue in today’s society. Many people question the use of pesticides and are blaming chemicals and conventional farming for the loss of beneficial insects. With this in mind people instead turn to the organic farming. The aim of this study was to try and find out if organic farming benefits the diversity of insects. The study was performed on a farm in South Africa which practice both conventional and organic farming and also has a natural Fynbos field on its property. The insect diversity was compared in these three different fields. The collecting of insects was performed by using two different methods, using pan traps and pitfall traps. This study shows that there is a significant difference in the amount of species among the different fields, with a significant higher insect diversity in the Fynbos compared to the conventional farming area, and the diversity of insects in the organic farming is somewhere between the natural Fynbos and the conventional farming. In conclusion this study stress that we need more understanding about what critical factors in the organic farming that supports higher diversity and the importance of surrounding farms that also may play a role to increase the biological diversity to cultivated fields.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hig-18570 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Ekström, Marcus |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för elektronik, matematik och naturvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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