Structure, Function and Dynamic of Pekarangan Agrobiodiversity In the Upper Stream of Kalibekasi Watershed, Bogor District.

Abstract

Indonesian typical home garden, “pekarangan”, has several ecological potentials of agrobiodiversity. Nevertheless, pekarangan management in Indonesia is facing several problems, such as decreasing plot size, decreasing plant species for production function, but increasing number of ornamental plants for aesthetic function. The objectives of this research are to propose recommendations on agrobiodiversity conservation in pekarangan by analyze the structure, function and spatial dynamic of pekarangan agrobiodiversity in the upper stream of Kalibekasi watershed. This research was conducted in Cimandala, Landeuh and Leuwijambe hamlets which represented the upper part, the middle part and the lower part of the upper stream of Kalibekasi Watershed, respectively, and Sentul City as the urbanized area for comparison. There are 48 samples of pekarangan were observed and analyzed. It was found that pekarangan in the rural area of the upper stream of Kalibekasi watershed have larger space in front yard and one of side yard, but smaller in back yard with multilayer plants. The main function of pekarangan in rural area is a media for production, but in urban area are for micro-climatic amelioration and aesthetic function. The numbers of Margalef index and Shannon-Wiener index show that the upper part has the highest plant diversity. While, the values of Sørensen coefficient indicate that the middle part is the transition place of species similarity of the upper and the lower part. The proposed recommendation is to hold and maintain pekarangan with high diversity of plants and livestocks, which householders get benefit from the product.