Effects of shade and bird exclusion on arthropods and leaf damage on coffee farms in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains

Johnson, Matthew D.; Levy, Natalee J.; Kellermann, Jherime L.; Robinson, Dwight E.

doi:10.1007/978-90-481-3323-9_11

Cited by 10 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Excluding birds caused increases in large and small arthropods. Assuming that predatory arthropods consume small prey items, birds may thus reduce herbivore abundances by feeding synergistically with other predators (Johnson et al 2009, Mooney et al 2010. Bats, in contrast, may both limit predatory arthropod abundance directly and compete with predatory arthropods over shared herbivorous prey.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This has caused declines in the substantial biodiversity that persists in coffee plantations . In particular, changes in insectivorous bird and bat communities may result in lower predation rates on insect pests, reducing farm yields and incomes (Kellermann et al 2008, Johnson et al 2009, Williams-Guille´n and Perfecto 2010, Karp et al 2011, Mendenhall et al 2011. Although increased leaf damage has been documented when birds and bats are excluded simultaneously (Greenberg et al 2000), the one study differentiating bird and bat predation found no effect on leaf damage of either group (Williams-Guille´n et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cascading effects of insectivorous birds and bats in tropical coffee plantations

Karp

Daily

2014

Ecology

102

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The loss of apex predators is known to have reverberating consequences for ecosystems, but how changes in broader predator assemblages affect vital ecosystem functions and services is largely unknown. Predators and their prey form complex interaction networks, in which predators consume not only herbivores but also other predators. Resolving these interactions will be essential for predicting changes in many important ecosystem functions, such as the control of damaging crop pests. Here, we examine how birds, bats, and arthropods interact to determine herbivorous arthropod abundance and leaf damage in Costa Rican coffee plantations. In an exclosure experiment, we found that birds and bats reduced non-flying arthropod abundance by -35% and -25%, respectively. In contrast, birds and bats increased the abundance of flying arthropods, probably by consuming spiders. The frequency of this intraguild predation differed between birds and bats, with cascading consequences for coffee shrubs. Excluding birds caused a greater increase in herbivorous arthropod abundance than excluding bats, leading to increased coffee leaf damage. Excluding bats caused an increase in spiders and other predatory arthropods, increasing the ratio of predators to herbivores in the arthropod community. Bats, therefore, did not provide benefits to coffee plants. Leaf damage on coffee was low, and probably did not affect coffee yields. Bird-mediated control of herbivores, however, may aid coffee shrubs in the long-term by preventing pest outbreaks. Regardless, our results demonstrate how complex, cascading interactions between predators and herbivores may impact plants and people.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cascading effects of insectivorous birds and bats in tropical coffee plantations

Karp

Daily

2014

Ecology

102

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“…pest control), providing "exchange rates" between ecological functions and ecosystem services (Sekercioglu 2006), may also provide a novel and useful tool towards integrating the needs of biodiversity conservation and food production in agricultural landscapes. A variety of evidence suggests that insectivorous birds may play important functional roles in relation to the population dynamics of some arthropods and the control of commercially important insect pests in a range of habitats including forest (Erdogan et al 2005;Van Bael et al 2008; Barbaro and Battisti 2011), coffee (Greenberg et al 2000;Perfecto et al 2004;Borkhataria et al 2006;Kellermann et al 2008;Johnson et al 2009Johnson et al , 2010Leyequien et al 2010) and other crops (Tremblay et al 2001;Mols and Visser 2002;Jones et al 2005;Bianchi et al 2006;Jones and Sieving 2006;Koh 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the contribution of birds to the control of arthropod pests on kale,Brassica oleracea acephala, a key crop in East African highland farmland

Ndang’ang’a

Njoroge

Vickery

2013

International Journal of Pest Management

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Bird exclusion experiments on kale (Brassica sp.) plants were undertaken to quantify the extent to which foraging birds contributed to reducing the densities and impact of invertebrate pests. During the dry season, significantly higher leaf-area loss, aphid and thrips abundance were recorded in bird-excluded compared with control plants, suggesting that birds could make an important contribution to pest control. On average, per week, during the dry season, exclusion of birds from kale plants led to both a marked increase (130%) in the number of leaves infested with aphids and an increase in leaf damage by pests (about three times greater than when birds had access to the kale plants). These results suggest that, in the dry season, foraging birds reduce the invertebrate pest load and hence the amount of leaf damage in kale, and that this may, in turn, have an impact of the market value of the crop. We recommend that measures to enhance avian insectivory should be explored and encouraged in order to better take advantage of birds in integrated pest management of kale and possibly other crops.

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“…Nevertheless, we suggest that future research focus on understanding more about how different land-use types influence the top-down effects by a different stratification of experimental sites. Several previous studies show the importance of birds, bats and predatory arthropods for top-down control of crop pests in both temperate and tropical regions (Perfecto et al, 2004;Johnson et al, 2009;Martin et al, 2013;Rusch et al, 2013;Maas et al, 2013). Some studies found higher damage on crops (e.g., barley and cabbage) from which ground arthropods were excluded (Caballero-López et al, 2012;Martin et al, 2013), while other studies noted a greater importance of birds for top-down pest control than predatory arthropods (e.g., spiders) (Hooks et al, 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Tree cover mediates the effect on rapeseed leaf damage of excluding predatory arthropods, but in an unexpected way

Lemessa

Samnegård

Hambäck

et al. 2015

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

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Effects of shade and bird exclusion on arthropods and leaf damage on coffee farms in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains

Cited by 10 publications

References 40 publications

Cascading effects of insectivorous birds and bats in tropical coffee plantations

Cascading effects of insectivorous birds and bats in tropical coffee plantations

Quantifying the contribution of birds to the control of arthropod pests on kale,Brassica oleracea acephala, a key crop in East African highland farmland

Tree cover mediates the effect on rapeseed leaf damage of excluding predatory arthropods, but in an unexpected way

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