Global disparity in public awareness of the biological control potential of invertebrates

Abstract

Invertebrates make up 97-99% of biodiversity on Earth and contribute to multiple ecosystem services (ES) in both natural and human-dominated systems. One such service, biological control (BC) of herbivorous pests, is a core component of sustainable intensification of agriculture, yet its importance is routinely overlooked. Here we report a macro-scale, cross-cultural assessment of the public visibility (or ‘awareness’) of BC invertebrates, using high-throughput analysis of large bodies of digitized text. Using binomial scientific name frequency as proxy for awareness, we compared the extent to which a given species featured in webpages within either scientific media or the entire worldwide web, and in total search volume at varying spatial scale. For a set of 339 BC invertebrate species, scientific and internet coverage averaged 1,020 and 1,735 webpages, respectively. Substantial variability was recorded among BC taxa with Coleoptera, Hemiptera and Nematoda having comparatively high visibility. Online visibility exhibited large geographical variability ranging from France covering BC invertebrates on average in 1,050 webpages versus USA on just 31. This work represents the first extensive use of culturomics to assess public visibility of insect-mediated ES. As BC uptake is dictated by stakeholders’ access to (agro-ecological) information, our work identifies geographically-delineated areas that are differentially attuned to the concept of invertebrate BC, pinpoints opportunities for focusing education campaigns and awareness-raising, enables real-time tracking of BC public appeal, and informs public policy.

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic pesticides. Part 4: Alternatives in major cropping systems

“…As local absence of alternatives effectively impedes their field-level adoption, our work calls for an acceleration of applied research in rice and for a (farm-level, participatory) technology validation in rice and maize. As a next step, locally validated technologies can be shared with farmers and the general public through, e.g., (mass-media) extension campaigns, “innovation” platforms for knowledge co-creation and sharing, farmer-to-farmer video channels, or online public media (Van Mele et al 2009 ; Pretty et al 2018 ; Wyckhuys et al 2019c ).…”

“…When interviewing farmers in the 1990s, anthropologists were regularly told “nothing kills insects, except for insecticides” (Wyckhuys et al 2019a , 2019c ). Though one might expect shallow ecological knowledge among illiterate, unschooled or resource-poor growers in the developing world, similar patterns—rather surprisingly—have been recorded among contemporary farmers in Western Europe (Zhang et al 2018 ).…”

“…Several elements inherent to pest management—and perceived by individual farmers in different ways—can either accelerate or impede the uptake and subsequent diffusion of non-chemical alternatives. Five technology attributes in particular constrain the adoption of alternatives such as biological control (Wyckhuys et al 2019c ; Wyckhuys et al 2018 ): (i) relative advantage, (ii) compatibility, (iii) complexity, (iv) traceability, and (v) observability. More specifically, (i) USA walnut and pear growers praise the low (financial, human health) cost and environmentally friendly profile of biological control, though often question its advantage in terms of effectiveness (Goldberger and Lehrer 2016 ).…”

“…Aside from neonicotinoid insecticides, numerous management techniques have been investigated for the above crop × pest complexes; many with highly favorable environmental, human health, and socio-economic profiles. Nature-based innovations (e.g., biological control) can be deployed in open-field and protected cultivation, have proven advantages over insecticides (Bommarco et al 2011 ; Naranjo et al 2015 ; Shields et al 2019 ) and favorable food safety profiles (Bale et al 2008 ), yet are faced with globally lagging rates of grower adoption and deficient stakeholder awareness (Shields et al 2019 ; van Lenteren 2012 ; Wyckhuys et al 2018 ; Wyckhuys et al 2019c ; Barratt et al 2018 ). Other approaches such as pest insurance schemes (Quiggin et al 1993 ; Miranda and Vedenov 2001 ), ecological engineering (e.g., (Gurr et al 2016 ), pesticide taxes coupled with enhanced grower education (Praneetvatakul et al 2013 ), regenerative farming (LaCanne and Lundgren 2018 ), customized decision-support tools, cultural control, and other IPM options have equally been examined.…”

Compatibility of two predator species for biological control of the two-spotted spider mite

“…The rising concern that the intensive use of pesticides leads to the development of pest resistance and has negative effects on human health and the environment has led to a strong growth in use of biological pest control approaches (Matson et al 1997;Margni et al 2002;UN Human Rights Council 2017;Wyckhuys et al 2019). Amongst the strategies used, augmentative biological control consists of the seasonal release of large numbers of natural enemies to suppress population outbreaks of the target pest species (Hajek 2004;van Lenteren et al 2018).…”