Abstract
Agroforestry systems (AFS) are an established and well-documented practice with widely recognized economic, social, and ecosystem benefits. However, literature regarding their woody component analysis for wood products is still incipient. This study aimed to survey articles that report results on the quality of wood produced in agroforestry systems, identify existing knowledge gaps regarding the quality of wood from AFS and, with those results, guide new studies. A search on Scopus and Web of Science was conducted using terms related to agroforestry systems and wood quality. The findings were screened and analyzed, and the main data and wood characteristics of each fitting article were described. This review describes thirteen articles, comprising four countries (Brazil, Costa Rica, France, India and Portugal), and it discusses the properties and potential use of wood from twelve species: Castanea sativa, Cedrela odorata, Eucalyptus grandis × Eucalyptus urophylla, Juglans nigra × regia, Khaya senegalensis, Parapiptadenia rigida, Peltophorum dubium, Populus deltoides × Populus tristris, Quercus robur, Quercus rotundifolia, Schizolobium parahyba and Tectona grandis. Most of the woods had superior or similar characteristics to monoculture ones, except for Tectona grandis. The geographic distribution of those studies is limited, with no studies from Africa and Oceania, and few authors publishing on this subject. Even though AFS is a traditional agricultural practice, few studies address the quality of the wood from this system. This study gathers existing information about the quality of wood produced in AFS, highlighting the knowledge gaps on this theme and indicating improvements for future work.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Notes
1The terms “tropical” and “subtropical” is thereafter used considering both in the geographically accurate sense (tropics are considered 23.5° north and south of the Equator; while subtropics are areas located in the middle latitudes from 23°26′10.3′′ to approximately 35° north and south of the globe), as well as the definition adopted by Nair et al. (2021): “(…) the word tropics is used in a general sense to include not only countries and regions within the geographical limits of the tropics but also the subtropical developing countries that have agroecological and socioeconomic characteristics and land-use problems that are comparable to those of the countries within the tropical (geographic) limits.”
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This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001 (Authors 1-4) and in part by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq (Author 5). No other specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors was received.
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Daniela Minini contributed to the study's conception and design. Data collection was performed by Kyvia Pontes Teixeira das Chagas and Daiane de Moura Borges Maria. Data analysis was performed by Daniela Minini, Cibelle Amaral Reis, Daiane de Moura Borges Maria, Kyvia Pontes Teixeira and Tarcila Rosa da Silva Lins. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Daniela Minini and Cibelle Amaral Reis, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. The revised manuscript was written by Daniela Minini, Cibelle Amaral Reis and Daiane de Moura Borges Maria, and all authors commented on this version as well. The review and editing were performed by Cibelle Amaral Reis. Pedro Henrique Gonzalez de Cademartori, Graziela Baptista Vidaurre, and Silvana Nisgoski supervised the research. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Minini, D., Amaral Reis, C., de Moura Borges Maria, D. et al. A review on the quality of wood from agroforestry systems. Agroforest Syst 98, 715–737 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-023-00941-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-023-00941-0