Managing Animal Diversity In Livestock Farming Systems: Which Diversity? Which Forms Of Management Practices? For Which Benefits?

Biodiversity, and particularly animal diversity chosen by farmers, is seen as a promising lever for the agroecological transition and the resilience of livestock farming systems (LFSs). However, there are few researches on it, and when available they are recent and scattered. This paper aims at developing a conceptual framework to create an integrated view of the management of animal diversity in LFSs and provide some avenues in this research topic. The framework consists of four interrelated components: the forms of animal diversity, the organizational and temporal levels at which it is built and takes place, the forms of its management in LFSs and the benefits from its management for the farmers. The framework was applied on four research studies contrasted in terms of the forms of animal diversity. The crossed case-study analysis showed that articulating the four components enables to manage in an integrated way the animal diversity in LFSs and take advantage of it in the long term. It revealed three novel research directions aiming at deepening the characterization of animal diversity, the understanding of its management in LFSs and the assessment of the various benefits derived from its management. Some avenues for using the framework in research, teaching and advice in LFS were finally suggested.