Sat, 2012-11-24 16:16 | 
Abstract
The olive crop has a great economic, social and ecological importance in the Mediterranean countries. Greece is the third largest olive grower country in the world after Spain and Italy. The olive plays an important role in rural development as one of the main sources of income and employment in relatively dry areas of the Mediterranean. The research was carried out in olive groves of Magnesia Prefecture, where in the olive groves management is observed two trends: a) abandonment of olive groves and b) small degree turn, but with increasing trend to the organic olive groves. The research aims to investigate the mechanism and the direction in which management practices (conventional, organic, abandonment) direct the evolution (change) of the olive grove ecosystems, and the impact of these practices on biodiversity as well. The specific objectives of the research regards on comparative study between representative: 1) conventional, 2) organic, 3) abandoned groves and 4) neighboring natural ecosystems (maquis) regarding to selected components of biodiversity, such as a) plant diversity, b) structure and density of bird communities, terrestrial Coleoptera, Isopods, and c) soil parameters such as soil fertility, density and diversity of earthworms and soil erosion. Moreover, they concern the appointment of biotic and abiotic indicators of flora and fauna species richness of olive groves under different management system. Also, the study aims to highlight "indicator species" that benefit from any of olive grove management system, in order to be used to as tools for monitoring of olive grove ecosystems in their future management.
