Landscape changes have greater effects than climate changes on six insect pests in China

Abstract

In recent years, global changes are the major causes of frequent, widespread outbreaks of pests in mosaic landscapes, which have received substantial attention worldwide. We collected data on global changes (landscape and climate) and economic damage caused by six main insect pests during 1951-2010 in China. Landscape changes had significant effects on all six insect pests. Pest damage increased significantly with increasing arable land area in agricultural landscapes. However, climate changes had no effect on damage caused by pests, except for the rice leaf roller (Cnaphalocrocis medinalis Guenee) and armyworm (Mythimna separate (Walker)), which caused less damage to crops with increasing mean temperature. Our results indicate that there is slight evidence of possible offset effects of climate changes on the increasing damage from these two agricultural pests. Landscape changes have caused serious outbreaks of several species, which suggests the possibility of the use of landscape design for the control of pest populations through habitat rearrangement. Landscape manipulation may be used as a green method to achieve sustainable pest management with minimal use of insecticides and herbicides. biological control, cropland expansion, global warming, mosaic landscape, pest damage Citation:

Do diverse landscapes provide for effective natural pest control in subtropical rice?

“…The basis for sustainable pest management in rice is ‘conservation biocontrol’, that is, conserving locally occurring natural enemies to suppress pest populations (Gallagher, Ooi, Mew, Borromeo, & Kenmore, ; Matteson, ; Savary, Horgan, Willocquet, & Heong, ). Maintaining diverse landscapes with semi‐natural habitats is considered an important mechanism for natural enemy conservation (Bianchi, Booij, & Tscharntke, ; Chaplin‐Kramer, O’Rourke, Blitzer, & Kremen, ; Rusch et al, ; Tscharntke et al, ), and recently calls have been made for ‘landscape manipulation’ to control, amongst others, major rice pests in China (Zhao, Sandhu, Ouyang, & Ge, ). However, the effects of landscape diversity on pest control are not always significant and positive (Begg et al, ; Rusch, Bommarco, & Ekbom, ), and the relative importance of landscape diversity in conservation biocontrol may vary dramatically depending on type of crop, pest, natural enemy, crop management and landscape structure (Tscharntke et al, ).…”

Investigating the (Mis)Match between Natural Pest Control Knowledge and the Intensity of Pesticide Use

“…Major variables considered in recent studies were the effects of landscape and local (field)-scale land use intensity on pests and natural enemies, as well as studies on climate [ 35 ]. However, as noted in previous reviews [ 36 ], only a minority of studies measured the full range of impact of these variables from their effects on pests and enemies, to pest control, crop damage and yields.…”

Influence of green light illumination at night on biological characteristics of the oriental armyworm,Mythimna separata(Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

“…The oriental armyworm, Mythimna (or Leucania ) separata is an important crop pest in East-Asian countries, causing serious economic losses (Sharma et al ., 2002; Zhao et al ., 2016; Lihuang et al ., 2017). Outbreak of the insect pests traditionally is controlled and managed by chemical synthetic pesticides, but this method is becoming increasingly difficult due to the ecosystem pollution and the insect pest's pesticide resistance by excess usage of the chemical pesticides (Jiang et al ., 2011; Lihuang et al ., 2017; Kim et al ., 2018 a ).…”