article · International Journal of Forestry Research
An ecological inventory of traditional coffee-based agroforestry systems in the Yirgacheffe district of southern Ethiopia evaluated woody species composition, forest structure, and carbon storage along an elevation gradient. Across thirty-eight sampling plots and corresponding soil depths of up to thirty centimetres, thirty-two woody plant species from twenty-three botanical families were identified. Species richness spanned between thirteen and seventeen species across different altitudes, alongside minor variations in plant diversity indices. The density, height, and stem diameter of shade trees and coffee shrubs differed significantly with elevation. Total aboveground woody biomass carbon stock varied from 11.07 to 27.48 megagrams per hectare. Soil organic carbon stock maintained a mean range of 83.91 to 89.29 megagrams per hectare. These findings establish that traditional coffee agroforests maintain structural complexity, floral diversity, and substantial carbon storage capacity across diverse elevations.
Traditional coffee cultivation can provide environmental benefits alongside agricultural yield. Demonstrating that these agroforestry systems retain significant woody biodiversity and store substantial carbon in both plants and soil across elevations supports their use in regional conservation initiatives, sustainable land management frameworks, and broader climate change mitigation efforts.
The abstract does not indicate a commercial application pathway or product development effort. As early-stage environmental research, the baseline data on carbon storage and tree density could eventually inform land managers, sustainability certifiers, or carbon credit project developers operating in highland coffee farming landscapes.
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There is a limited effort in Ethiopia to study scientifically the ecological features of traditional coffee-based agroforestry systems. This study was initiated to determine the structure, composition, and carbon stock of woody species along an elevation gradient of a traditional coffee-based agroforestry system in Yirgacheffe district, southern Ethiopia. Woody plants’ inventory was conducted in thirty-eight sampling quadrats (20 <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1"> <a:msup> <a:mrow/> <a:mrow> <a:mi>∗</a:mi> </a:mrow> </a:msup> </a:math> 20 m) along five elevation contours and eight transects. Thirty-eight soil samples were taken from randomly selected subplots at 0–30 cm soil depths. In this study 32, woody plant species representing 23 families were recorded. Species richness ranged from 13–17 along the elevation gradient. Woody plant diversity indices appear to have a slight variation with increasing elevation gradient. Shade tree and coffee shrub density, DBH, and height showed significant variations along the elevation gradient. Total aboveground woody biomass carbon stock along elevation gradient ranged from 11.07 to 27.48 Mg·ha−1. Soil organic carbon stock was slightly different across elevation gradients with a mean range of 83.91 to 89.29 Mg·ha−1. These indicate that the agroforestry system has significant potential of storing and enhancing ecosystem carbon stocks across all the elevation gradients. The findings generally show that agroforestry systems in the study area are diverse, structurally complex with significant carbon storage in the soil and woody biomass.
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DOI: 10.1155/2022/4729336
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