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Floral plantings are promoted to foster ecological intensification of agriculture through provisioning of ecosystem services. However, a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of different floral plantings, their characteristics and consequences for crop yield is lacking. Here we quantified the impacts of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control (18 studies) and pollination services (17 studies) in adjacent crops in North America, Europe and New Zealand. Flower strips, but not hedgerows, enhanced pest control services in adjacent fields by 16% on average. However, effects on crop pollination and yield were more variable. Our synthesis identifies several important drivers of variability in effectiveness of plantings: pollination services declined exponentially with distance from plantings, and perennial and older flower strips with higher flowering plant diversity enhanced pollination more effectively. These findings provide promising pathways to optimise floral plantings to more effectively contribute to ecosystem service delivery and ecological intensification of agriculture in the future.

With the loss of effective chemical controls of crop pests, a move towards biological controls is a way to future‐proof our agricultural system. Floral field margins have shown successes in reducing crop pests, though the effect may not be precise enough to control infestations in commercial crops. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) may provide a more species‐ and time‐specific control and combining these methods may have synergy.Three in‐field vegetation margins, divided into four plots each (two floral and two grass), were established in March 2022. Three strips of sprouting broccoli were planted parallel in April, May and June. Each strip had a split‐plot design, with eight replicates of four nematode treatments placed alongside each floral/grass plot: Steinernema carpocapsae, S. feltiae and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora and a nematode‐free control.Pest pressure was assessed using adult counts. Assessments of crop yield and crop damage associated specifically with the swede smidge (Contarinia nasturtii) were also made.It was found that utilising a combination of control measures was successful in controlling a wider range of pests, though the success of each control method was highly dependent on the time of crop plantings. Field margins had a significant influence on crop damage associated with the swede midge. The EPN H. bacteriophora was an effective control method for the cabbage stem flea beetle and the swede midge, as well as reducing crop damage and yield loss.Field margins and EPNs combined have an interactive effect on crop yield, highlighting the need for control methods to be tested in combination in future integrated pest management research to accurately understand their effects within an integrated system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arthropod community composition in agricultural landscapes is dependent on habitat characteristics, such as plant composition, landscape homogeneity and the presence of key resources, which are usually absent in monocultures. Manipulating agroecosystems through the insertion of in-field floral resources is a useful technique to reduce the deleterious effects of habitat simplification. Food web analysis can clarify how the community reacts to the presence of floral resources which favour ecosystem services such as biological control of pest species. Here, we reported quantitative and qualitative alterations in arthropod food web complexity due to the presence of floral resources from the Mexican marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) in a field scale lettuce community network. The presence of marigold flowers in the field successfully increased richness, body size, and the numerical and biomass abundance of natural enemies in the lettuce arthropod community, which affected the number of links, vulnerability, generality, omnivory rate and food chain length in the community, which are key factors for the stability of relationships between species. Our results reinforce the notion that diversification through insertion of floral resources may assist in preventing pest outbreaks in agroecosystems. This community approach to arthropod interactions in agricultural landscapes can be used in the future to predict the effect of different management practices in the food web to contribute with a more sustainable management of arthropod pest species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prediction of pest-control functioning by multi-predator communities is hindered by the non-additive nature of species functioning. Such non-additivity, commonly termed an emergent multi-predator effect, is known to be affected by elements of the ecological context, such as the structure and composition of vegetation, in addition to the traits of the predators themselves. Here we report mesocosm experiments designed to test the influence of plant density and species composition (wheat monoculture or wheat and faba bean polyculture) on the emergence of multi-predator effects between Adalia bipunctata and Chrysoperla carnea, in their suppression of populations of the aphid Metopolophium dirhodum. The mesocosm experiments were followed by a series of behavioural observations designed to identify how interactions among predators are modified by plant species composition and whether these effects are consistent with the observed influence of plant species composition on aphid population suppression. Although plant density was shown to have no influence on the multi-predator effect on aphid population growth, plant composition had a marked effect. In wheat monoculture, Adalia and Chrysoperla mixed treatments caused greater suppression of M. dirhodum populations than expected. However this positive emergent effect was reversed to a negative multi-predator effect in wheat and faba bean polyculture. The behavioural observations revealed that although dominant individuals did not respond to the presence of faba bean plants, the behaviour of sub-dominants was affected markedly, consistent with their foraging for extra-floral nectar produced by the faba bean. This interaction between plant composition and predator community composition on the foraging behaviour of sub-dominants is thought to underlie the observed effect of plant composition on the multi-predator effect. Thus, the emergence of multi-predator effects is shown to be strongly influenced by plant species composition, mediated, in this case, by the provision of extra-floral nectar by one of the plant species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Declining biodiversity in agro-ecosystems, caused by intensification of production or expansion of monocultures, is associated with the emergence of agricultural pests. Understanding how land-use and management control crop-associated biodiversity is, therefore, one of the key steps towards the prediction and maintenance of natural pest-control. Here we report on relationships between land-use variables and arthropod community attributes (for example, species diversity, abundance and guild structure) across a diversification gradient in a rice-dominated landscape in the Mekong delta, Vietnam. We show that rice habitats contained the most diverse arthropod communities, compared with other uncultivated and cultivated land-use types. In addition, arthropod species density and Simpson’s diversity in flower, vegetable and fruit habitats was positively related to rice cover in the local landscape. However, across the landscape as a whole, reduction in heterogeneity and the amount of uncultivated cover was associated, generally, with a loss of diversity. Furthermore, arthropod species density in tillering and flowering stages of rice was positively related to crop and vegetation richness, respectively, in the local landscape. Differential effects on feeding guilds were also observed in rice-associated communities with the proportional abundance of predators increasing and the proportional abundance of detritivores decreasing with increased landscape rice cover. Thus, we identify a range of rather complex, sometimes contradictory patterns concerning the impact of rice cover and landscape heterogeneity on arthropod community attributes. Importantly, we conclude that that land-use change associated with expansion of monoculture rice need not automatically impact diversity and functioning of the arthropod community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Concern over declining biodiversity and the implications for continued provision of ecosystem services has led, recently, to intense research effort to describe relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Here we extend this effort to the relationship between natural enemy species diversity and natural pest control. From simple modelled food-webs and simulations of natural enemy species loss we derive specific predictions concerning the effect of herbivore life-history traits, such as life-cycle type and concealment, on the shape (reflecting diversity effects) and variance (reflecting species composition effects) of the relationship between natural enemy diversity and pest-control. We show that these predictions are consistent with the emergence of different pest types following intensification of rice production in Asia. We suggest that basic biological insights can help define the structure of ecological processes and allow more accurate predictions of the effect of species loss on the delivery of ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Arthropods that have a direct impact on crop production (i.e. pests, natural enemies and pollinators) can be influenced by both local farm management and the context within which the fields occur in the wider landscape. However, the contributions and spatial scales at which these drivers operate and interact are not fully understood, particularly in the developing world. The impact of both local management and landscape context on insect pollinators and natural enemy communities and on their capacity to deliver related ecosystem services to an economically important tropical crop, pigeonpea was investigated. The study was conducted in nine paired farms across a gradient of increasing distance to semi-native vegetation in Kibwezi, Kenya. Results show that proximity of fields to semi-native habitats negatively affected pollinator and chewing insect abundance. Within fields, pesticide use was a key negative predictor of pollinator, pest and foliar active predator abundance. On the contrary, fertilizer application significantly enhanced pollinator and both chewing and sucking insect pest abundance. At a 1km spatial scale of fields, there were significant negative effects of the number of semi-native habitat patches within fields dominated by mass flowering pigeonpea on pollinators abundance. For service provision, a significant decline in fruit set when insects were excluded from flowers was recorded. This study reveals the interconnections of pollinators, predators and pests with pigeonpea crop. For sustainable yields and to conserve high densities of both pollinators and predators of pests within pigeonpea landscapes, it is crucial to target the adoption of less disruptive farm management practices such as reducing pesticide and fertilizer inputs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]