A review of post-war changes in rice farming and biodiversity in Japan

Abstract

A B S T R A C TFlooded rice fields can provide habitats for wetland species and ecosystem services similar to those of natural wetlands. During the last three decades, however, farming practices and management systems have been intensified in many rice-producing countries. In addition, more recent socioeconomic changes have caused agricultural abandonment in some parts of East and Southeast Asian countries such as Japan. This study reviewed long-term statistics on rice farming, as well as the impact of agricultural intensification and abandonment on farmland biodiversity at multiple spatial scales in Japan. The impact of pesticide use was greatest in the 1950s-1970s, when the use of highly toxic agents had not yet been prohibited. More recently, different components of agricultural intensification have been the largest threat for various taxa, for example, chemical pesticides for aquatic plants and invertebrates and modern efficient irrigation/ drainage systems for amphibians, fishes, and waterbirds. The negative impacts of agricultural abandonment on farmland species have been rapidly increasing with the expansion of abandoned fields and the subsequent vegetation succession and loss of habitat heterogeneity. We also discuss the effectiveness of environmentally friendly farming practices, including the reduced use of pesticides, winter paddy flooding, and installation of fishways, to reduce the negative impacts of agricultural intensification on farmland species in rice-paddy landscapes.

Responses of water mite assemblages (Acari) to environmental parameters at irrigated rice cultivation fields and native lakes

“…Water mites can be powerful biomonitoring tools, fulfilling all adequate requirements for a bioindicator (Goldschmidt 2016). Our results confirm that anthropized areas have lower richness of water mites than native areas, as suggested by Katayama et al (2015). They observed a decline in richness and abundance at a consolidated rice field.…”

Place-Based Solutions for Conservation and Restoration of Social-Ecological Production Landscapes and Seascapes in Asia

“…We introduce some of the ways each of these drivers have upset the balance of resource use in turn. First, the use of modern agricultural technologies has changed the balance of species in some ecosystems (Kumar and Takeuchi 2009;Plieninger et al 2014;Akça et al 2015;Katayama et al 2015;Aadrean 2017). In Taiwan's Shungxi River Valley for instance, farmers' use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has put great pressure on local aquatic species and other freshwater-based ecosystem services (Yun-Ju et al 2015).…”

A review of rice field ostracods (Crustacea) with a checklist of species

“…Pesticides developed in the 1950s and 60s and which were used on rice fields were generally more potent and environmentally damaging than recent counterparts (Katayama et al, 2015). Rossi et al (2003) suggested that the widespread use of pesticides during the 1960s onwards in Italian rice fields was the cause of the decline of ostracod diversity over a thirty-year period.…”

“…In experiments with freshwater fish fry and ostracods, it was noted that the fry eat the ostracods, but if the number of ostracods is large, the ostracods attack and eat the fish fry, leaving only the vertebrae and scales (Liperovskaya, 1948). Modernization of rice production has negatively affected some of the predators of ostracods, such as fish and frogs (Katayama et al, 2015).…”