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Because biodiversity is Life
Asetofprojectactionsfocusedonbiodiversity.Themainobjectiveoftheseactionswastohighlightbiodiversity
as an “ally” of farmers in the process of producing high quality products, attractive to the consumers, with
respect to environmental characteristics of each region and olive grove. In the framework of these actions
carried out by EKBY:
Agronomists and producers learn how to focus on biodiversity
The advisor agronomists were trained how to monitor biodiversity in olive groves and how to incorporate
biodiversity issues in their guidelines to farmers and to administrators of olive groves, so that farming practices
are carried out in ways that favour biodiversity and avoid or mitigate any impacts on it. Training of advisor
agronomists by EKBY trainers lasted several hours. Trainingwas both theoretical and field practice. During field
practice, special emphasis was given to the identification of individual organisms and of major aspects of their
environment and also to the correct recording of biodiversity data, in selected olive groves at the three project
sites. Themonitoring protocol and the implementation guidelines are available to all interested parties from the
project website and from the farmers’ Associations that participated in SAGE10 project.
Olive growing with respect to biodiversity - with respect to Life
Guidelines of good practices in biodiversity were drafted, which were communicated to advisor agronomists
and to the farmers themselves. Both the elaboration of guidelines and the communication of their way to
implement themand how to use them in general, were carried out by EKBY’s scientists. Through the guidelines
agronomists and farmers have had the opportunity to get acquainted with the importance of biodiversity
in the maintenance of the ecological balance of agro-ecosystems, and to learn how to apply cultivation
practices in order to contribute to the conservation or recovery of biodiversity of olive groves, taking into
account the characteristics of each grove and the need for optimal utilization of available resources. These
good practice guidelines on biodiversity are available to all interested parties from the project website and
from the farmers’ Associations that participated in SAGE10 project.
Because rich biodiversity is evidence of a living olive grove
Biodiversity recordings were carried out by Agricultural University of Athens, aiming to identify the effects of
olive growing on biodiversity and to determine the contribution of IAPmethod to environmental improvement.
The recordings were carried out by experts, in olive groves that participated in the project and twice during
the project execution period; once before and once after the implementation of the IAP method. The results
provide some evidence of the effects of olive growing on biodiversity (e.g. as a result of intense mechanical
tillage, bare soil prevails in the olive groves of Peza Crete and this adversely affects the conservation of plants
and animals such as reptiles). As expected, the three-year duration of the project was a very short time to
manifest changes in biodiversity as a result of the contribution of the IAP method. In the case of some animal
groups, such as invertebrates and birds, an improvement of diversity indices was observed in all project sites.
However, since the changes were not statistically significant, it is still unclear whether these changes can be
attributed to improved environment conditions due to the IAP method or to the variability of measurements.
Biodiversity in each area and studied site for both seasons was calculated using Shannon –Wiener diversity
index. A greater number of species and a more equitable proportion of various species in the population
increases the diversitymeasured by Shannon’s diversity index. Except fromChora Trifilias, the average values of
Shannon’s diversity index were greater in 2014 compared to 2013 surveys. In particular, the averaged values of
Shannon’s diversity index during 2013 were 1,14 for Peza, 1,07 for Meramvello and 1,48 for Chora Trifilias. The
respected values during 2014 were 1,53 for Peza, 1,19 for Meramvello and 1,30 for Chora Trifilias.
The average values in each site of the studied areas were 5,20 and 12,50 in Peza for the surveys
of 2013 and 2014 respectively, 5,25 and 8,85 in Meramvello, as well as 7,33 and 12,56 in Chora Trifilias.
The abovementioned plant species in Peza belonged to 16 and 31 botanical families during 2013 and
2014, respectively. In Meramvello the recorded botanical families were 16 and 33 during 2013 and 2014,
respectively and in Chora Trifilias 19 and 24.
Compositae and Graminae were the most important botanical families in terms of number of plant species
structuring the plant community of the olive groves studied. During the survey of 2013, 19,2% of the total
number of the recorded plant species in Peza belonged to the family Compositae, whereas 15,4% and 11,5%
belonged to the families Graminae and Fabaceae, respectively. In Meramvello, Compositae and Graminae
consisted in equal number of plant species (16,7% of the total number of the recorded plant species) and
followed by Fabaceae (13,3%of the total number of the recorded plant species). The same trend also discovered
and in Chora Trifilias where Compositae and Graminae were represented by the same number of plant species
(13,9% of the total number of the recorded plant species) and followed by Fabaceae (11,6% of the total number
of the recorded plant species). Although the rank of the recorded families (in terms of number of plant species
representativeness) was almost the same between 2013 and 2014, their representation in each area was
slightly modified. In particular, 16,7% of the total number of the recorded plant species in Peza belonged to the
family Compositae, whereas 11,1% and 8,3% belonged to the families Graminae and Fabaceae, respectively. In
Meramvello the recorded valueswere 15,6% for Compositae, 10,4% for Graminae and 7,8% for Fabaceae. Finally
the recorded values in Chora Trifilias were 18,0% for Compositae, 13,1% for Graminae and 8,2% for Fabaceae.
The most frequently occurring plants, regarding their relative abundance, in each area and cultivation
period were Oxalis pes-caprae in Peza (70,16 during 2013 and 54,27 during 2014) and in Meramvello (95,90
during 2013 and 84,25 during 2014), Calendula arvensis (35,05) in Chora Trifilias during 2013 and Anthemis
arvensis (40,56) in Chora Trifilias during 2014.
biodiversity
