Mätning av ekosystemtjänster i jordbrukslandskapet

Abstract: In order to make the modern agriculture less dependent on non-renewable external inputs, it has to rely more on ecosystem services. The agricultural system produce not only food, fiber and fuel, it also generates other ecosystem services such as e.g. photosynthesis, recycling of nutrients, influencing local microclimate, pollination, biological control and detoxification of noxious chemicals. This study is an attempt to get a better understanding about the interaction among different ecosystem services and different habitats capacity to generate them. An evaluation of eight different methods is done. The ecosystem services studied are the ability to absorb solar energy, biomass production, botanical diversity, decomposition and natural predation of aphids. The research has taken place at the Swedish Agricultural University's ecological experimental farm Ekhaga. Natural pasture, permanent pasture field, first year ley, intercropping of barley and peas, ecological and conventional winter wheat, respectively, are the studied habitats. The results show that a hand held radiometer can be used when looking at different habitats ability to absorb solar energy. When using the litterbag method it is important to use easily decomposable material and to let the bags stay in the ground for a long period of time. To expel earthworms with mustard flour suspension is quite time consuming and require several iterations. It is important to have more and bigger experimental squares in natural pasture than in fields, when studying the botanical biodiversity. Placing aphids on self-adhesive paper is an effective way to measure the ecosystem service natural predation.