Win-win opportunities combining high yields with high multi-taxa biodiversity in tropical agroforestry.

Resolving ecological-economic trade-offs between biodiversity and yields is a key challenge when addressing the biodiversity crisis in tropical agricultural landscapes. Here, we focused on the relation between seven different taxa (trees, herbaceous plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles, butterflies, and ants) and yields in vanilla agroforests in Madagascar. Agroforests established in forests supported overall 23% fewer species and 47% fewer endemic species than old-growth forests, and 14% fewer endemic species than forest fragments. In contrast, agroforests established on fallows had overall 12% more species and 38% more endemic species than fallows. While yields increased with vanilla vine density and length, non-yield related variables largely determined biodiversity. Nonetheless, trade-offs existed between yields and butterflies as well as  reptiles. Vanilla yields were generally unrelated to richness of trees, herbaceous plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and ants, opening up possibilities for conservation outside of protected areas and restoring degraded land to benefit farmers and biodiversity alike.

Land-use trajectories for sustainable land system transformations: Identifying leverage points in a global biodiversity hotspot.

Sustainable land-system transformations are necessary to avert biodiversity and climate collapse. However, it remains unclear where entry points for transformations exist in complex land systems. Here, we conceptualize land systems along land-use trajectories, which allows us to identify and evaluate leverage points, i.e., entry points on the trajectory where targeted interventions have particular leverage to influence land-use decisions. We apply this framework in the biodiversity hotspot Madagascar. In the northeast, smallholder agriculture results in a land-use trajectory originating in old-growth forests and spanning from forest fragments to shifting hill rice cultivation and vanilla agroforests. Integrating interdisciplinary empirical data on seven taxa, five ecosystem services, and three measures of agricultural productivity, we assess trade-offs and cobenefits of land-use decisions at three leverage points along the trajectory. These trade-offs and cobenefits differ between leverage points: Two leverage points are situated at the conversion of old-growth forests and forest fragments to shifting cultivation and agroforestry, resulting in considerable trade-offs, especially between endemic biodiversity and agricultural productivity. Here, interventions enabling smallholders to conserve forests are necessary. This is urgent since ongoing forest loss threatens to eliminate these leverage points due to path dependency. The third leverage point allows for the restoration of land under shifting cultivation through vanilla agroforests and offers cobenefits between restoration goals and agricultural productivity. The co-occurring leverage points highlight that conservation and restoration are simultaneously necessary to avert collapse of multifunctional mosaic landscapes. Methodologically, the framework highlights the importance of considering path dependency along trajectories to achieve sustainable land-system transformations.

Spider traps amphibian in northeastern Madagascar.

Predation can take unexpected turns. For instance, various invertebrate species-most commonly spiders-may prey on vertebrates. Here, we report one observation of a spider (Sparassidae, Damastes sp.) feeding on an amphibian (Hyperoliidae, Heterixalus andrakata) inside a retreat in northeastern Madagascar. To our knowledge, this is the second report of vertebrate predation by spiders in Madagascar. Three additional observations of retreats built by the same spider species show that the spiders built similar retreats and were hiding at the rear end of the retreat. The retreats were built by weaving two green leaves together which were still attached to the tree. We speculate from the observations, that the retreat serves as a targeted trap that deceives frogs seeking shelter during daytime.