PLANT DIVERSITY IN AGRO-ECOSYSTEM ALONG RURAL URBAN INTERFACE OF BENGALURU AND THE CONSEQUENTIAL CHANGES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
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Date
2019-12-20
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UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES GKVK, BENGALURU
Abstract
Urbanization is a contemporary global trend resulting from population growth and
migration, which concentrates the demand for food, energy and land at place of aggregation
exerting pressure on the natural resources, leading to major changes in ecosystem and its
services. Present study was aim to assessing the consequential changes in the plant
diversity in agroecosystem along the rural urban transition (RUT) of Bengaluru. A total of
208 plant species were recorded in the agroecosystems along the RUT zones of Bengaluru
out of 208 species 62 were cultivated crop species. Highest numbers of vegetable, fruit and
flower crop species were found in the urban and transition zones, while in the rural zone
number of staple food crop species cultivated were more. Similar trends were noticed in
case of area cultivated across RUT zones. The chemical fertilizers and pesticides required
for cultivation of vegetables, fruits and flower crops is found to be more compared to staple
food crops. The source of water contamination is leaching and runoff of fertilizers and
pesticides from agriculture fields, since higher quantities of these chemicals used in the
cultivation in urban and transition zones is bound to add more contaminants to water
bodies. From water quality it is found that in urban and transition zones water bodies are
more contaminated compared to rural zone. Similar trend of soil quality deterioration was
also noticed in RUT zones. Present study indicates the influence of urbanization on the
biodiversity of agroecosystems of Bengaluru.