Systematic evidence map of coffee agroecosystem management and biodiversity linkages in producing countries

Abstract

Coffee is one of the most important agricultural products globally, and its production has been boosted to fulfill the rising global demand. Despite being predominantly consumed in western countries, coffee is cultivated in many of the world's most biodiverse tropical regions, leading to tropical deforestation and biodiversity loss with further environmental and social implications. Despite extensive studies on the impacts of coffee farm management on biodiversity, the trends in research on this issue over the last two decades remain unclear. Therefore, this work was initiated with the aim of conducting a systematic evidence map study concerning the impacts of coffee production on biodiversity throughout tropical coffee-producing countries. After conducting a search of the literature in peer-reviewed journal databases and gray literature, we screened the identified papers using machine learning-related software, identifying a total of 292 studies for inclusion in the systematic map database and synthesis. We found that there was a trend for an increase in the number of publications examining the relationship between coffee cultivation and tropical biodiversity, with the majority of studies being conducted in Latin America. Among coffee management interventions, studies on the effects of land-use gradients driven by coffee cultivation and shade management on invertebrate biodiversity were identified as dominant topics. Meanwhile, there were fewer studies measuring the impacts of water management on tropical biodiversity. We suggest that these gaps become the focus of future research as such work might be essential to support more sustainable, cleaner and biodiversity-friendly forms of coffee production.