1. Crop pests and predators exhibit inconsistent responses to surrounding landscape composition.
- Author
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Karp DS, Chaplin-Kramer R, Meehan TD, Martin EA, DeClerck F, Grab H, Gratton C, Hunt L, Larsen AE, Martínez-Salinas A, O'Rourke ME, Rusch A, Poveda K, Jonsson M, Rosenheim JA, Schellhorn NA, Tscharntke T, Wratten SD, Zhang W, Iverson AL, Adler LS, Albrecht M, Alignier A, Angelella GM, Zubair Anjum M, Avelino J, Batáry P, Baveco JM, Bianchi FJJA, Birkhofer K, Bohnenblust EW, Bommarco R, Brewer MJ, Caballero-López B, Carrière Y, Carvalheiro LG, Cayuela L, Centrella M, Ćetković A, Henri DC, Chabert A, Costamagna AC, De la Mora A, de Kraker J, Desneux N, Diehl E, Diekötter T, Dormann CF, Eckberg JO, Entling MH, Fiedler D, Franck P, Frank van Veen FJ, Frank T, Gagic V, Garratt MPD, Getachew A, Gonthier DJ, Goodell PB, Graziosi I, Groves RL, Gurr GM, Hajian-Forooshani Z, Heimpel GE, Herrmann JD, Huseth AS, Inclán DJ, Ingrao AJ, Iv P, Jacot K, Johnson GA, Jones L, Kaiser M, Kaser JM, Keasar T, Kim TN, Kishinevsky M, Landis DA, Lavandero B, Lavigne C, Le Ralec A, Lemessa D, Letourneau DK, Liere H, Lu Y, Lubin Y, Luttermoser T, Maas B, Mace K, Madeira F, Mader V, Cortesero AM, Marini L, Martinez E, Martinson HM, Menozzi P, Mitchell MGE, Miyashita T, Molina GAR, Molina-Montenegro MA, O'Neal ME, Opatovsky I, Ortiz-Martinez S, Nash M, Östman Ö, Ouin A, Pak D, Paredes D, Parsa S, Parry H, Perez-Alvarez R, Perović DJ, Peterson JA, Petit S, Philpott SM, Plantegenest M, Plećaš M, Pluess T, Pons X, Potts SG, Pywell RF, Ragsdale DW, Rand TA, Raymond L, Ricci B, Sargent C, Sarthou JP, Saulais J, Schäckermann J, Schmidt NP, Schneider G, Schüepp C, Sivakoff FS, Smith HG, Stack Whitney K, Stutz S, Szendrei Z, Takada MB, Taki H, Tamburini G, Thomson LJ, Tricault Y, Tsafack N, Tschumi M, Valantin-Morison M, Van Trinh M, van der Werf W, Vierling KT, Werling BP, Wickens JB, Wickens VJ, Woodcock BA, Wyckhuys K, Xiao H, Yasuda M, Yoshioka A, and Zou Y
- Subjects
- Animals, Crops, Agricultural growth & development, Crops, Agricultural parasitology, Ecosystem, Models, Biological, Pest Control, Biological
- Abstract
The idea that noncrop habitat enhances pest control and represents a win-win opportunity to conserve biodiversity and bolster yields has emerged as an agroecological paradigm. However, while noncrop habitat in landscapes surrounding farms sometimes benefits pest predators, natural enemy responses remain heterogeneous across studies and effects on pests are inconclusive. The observed heterogeneity in species responses to noncrop habitat may be biological in origin or could result from variation in how habitat and biocontrol are measured. Here, we use a pest-control database encompassing 132 studies and 6,759 sites worldwide to model natural enemy and pest abundances, predation rates, and crop damage as a function of landscape composition. Our results showed that although landscape composition explained significant variation within studies, pest and enemy abundances, predation rates, crop damage, and yields each exhibited different responses across studies, sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing in landscapes with more noncrop habitat but overall showing no consistent trend. Thus, models that used landscape-composition variables to predict pest-control dynamics demonstrated little potential to explain variation across studies, though prediction did improve when comparing studies with similar crop and landscape features. Overall, our work shows that surrounding noncrop habitat does not consistently improve pest management, meaning habitat conservation may bolster production in some systems and depress yields in others. Future efforts to develop tools that inform farmers when habitat conservation truly represents a win-win would benefit from increased understanding of how landscape effects are modulated by local farm management and the biology of pests and their enemies., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)
- Published
- 2018
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