Perennial Flowering Strips for Conservation Biological Control of Insect Pests: From Picking and Mixing Flowers to Tailored Functional Diversity

Hatt, Séverin; Francis, Frédéric; Xu, Qingxuan; Wang, Su; Osawa, Naoya

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-44838-7_4

Cited by 18 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…In-field plant diversification is known to provide benefits to pollinators and predators of pests [18]; therefore, management of the understorey beneath the trees that would promote plant diversity could contribute to invertebrate diversity by providing ground-level cover for overwintering, and additional food sources such as pollen and nectar [14,19]. Recent research has demonstrated that incorporating flower strips into agricultural systems can benefit pollinators, natural enemies, and pest control services, although proximity to flower strip and age are important factors for pollinators [20][21][22][23]. The incorporation of flower strips into tree row understoreys in silvoarable systems could provide even greater benefits, because the density of tree rows is typically higher than for flower strips which are usually restricted to field margins [24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Management to Promote Flowering Understoreys Benefits Natural Enemy Diversity, Aphid Suppression and Income in an Agroforestry System

et al. 2021

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Agroforestry systems, where productive trees are integrated into agricultural land, can deliver benefits to biodiversity, natural pest control, and pollination, but the effects are highly variable. Recent advances in our understanding of flower strips in agricultural systems suggest that the management of the tree row understorey could be an important contributor to this variation. Here, we compare two cutting regimes for an understorey, originally seeded with the same flower mix, in the tree rows of an apple-arable agroforestry system: (i) uncut vegetation to promote a flowering understorey, and (ii) regularly mown vegetation. We recorded the effects of management on invertebrate pests, natural enemies, and pollinators, in both the apple and arable components. Apple trees above flowering understoreys supported significantly: (i) more natural enemies early in the season, (ii) fewer aphid colonies, (iii) fewer aphid-damaged fruits, and (iv) higher pollinator visitation, compared with those above mown understoreys. In the arable crop alleys, both the taxonomic richness and Shannon diversity of ground-based natural enemies were significantly higher adjacent to flowering understoreys, compared with those adjacent to mown understoreys, early in the season. Financial modelling based on aphid damage to apples, mowing costs, and income from Countryside Stewardship grants, indicated that flowering understoreys increased farm income by GBP 231.02 per ha of agroforestry compared with mown understoreys. Our results provide the first empirical evidence that management to promote flowering understoreys in agroforestry systems can be a win-win option to improve invertebrate diversity, associated ecosystem services, and farm income.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Management to Promote Flowering Understoreys Benefits Natural Enemy Diversity, Aphid Suppression and Income in an Agroforestry System

et al. 2021

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“…Notably, at the local scale, predators benefit from an increase in plant diversity [ 6 ] that can be enhanced by cultivating crop mixtures [ 7 ]. Semi-natural habitats rich in flowers can be created within fields or at field margins [ 8 ] to offer shelter, potential prey, and nectar and pollen resources [ 9 ]. Nectar and pollen can also be supplied by cultivating flowering crop species (potentially in association with a main crop), providing the double advantage of food and other consumables for people while benefiting flower-visiting predators [ 10 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High Variability in Pre-Oviposition Time Independent of Diet Available at Eclosion: A key Reproductive Trait in the Ladybird Beetle Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in Its Native Range

Hatt

Osawa

2021

Insects

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While insect predators need high-quality food to reach sexual maturity and reproduce, starvation following adult eclosion may occur when prey are missing in agroecosystems. This study explores whether the type of diet available at eclosion determines the future fecundity of newly emerged adult predators. In a laboratory experiment, three different diets (i.e., flowers of Perilla frutescens (L.) Britton, eggs of Ephestia kuehniella Zeller as prey, or no food) were offered to adult females of the ladybird beetle Harmonia axyridis Pallas during their first three days after adult eclosion. On the fourth day, each female was paired with a prey-fed male and the pair was subsequently fed with prey. Diet at eclosion did not affect pre-oviposition time, the number of eggs oviposited daily, or the viability of egg batches. High variability in pre-oviposition time among females was observed for all diets. Significant negative linear relationships were found between pre-oviposition time and both the number of eggs oviposited daily and the viability of egg batches. This study clarifies that the food readily available at adult eclosion does not affect the capacity of H. axyridis to reproduce, provided that adults find prey within a few days. More generally, it shows that the reproductive traits of H. axyridis allow this generalist predator to be highly adapted to heterogenous environments in its native range. It is concluded that the variety of habitats offered by diversified agroecosystems may highly benefit the ladybird beetle H. axyridis, and potentially enhance its ability to biologically regulate crop pests.

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“…In addition, a diversity of natural enemies will avoid selection for resistant pest populations; similar to resistance to pesticides, insects can also evolve resistance to specialized natural enemies either themselves or through interactions with microbial symbionts (McLean & Parker, 2020; Zytynska & Meyer, 2019). As a consequence, current flower mixtures for floral plantings often use a selection of local and native flower species that hope to provide various resources for increasing pollinators and natural enemy communities (Hatt et al, 2020). However, simply increasing flower species richness or plant functional diversity in fields does not necessarily translate into increased pest control (Albrecht et al, 2020; Hatt et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many natural enemies directly benefit from plant nectar, as the adults feed on nectar while the larvae feed on insects; provision of a nectar source can increase a parasitoid wasps’ life span by up to 14.7‐fold and increase their host‐searching time from 3 days to 2 weeks (Russell, 2015). However, inconsistent outcomes of using floral plantings have hindered more widespread use (Albrecht et al, 2020; Hatt et al, 2020; Lowe et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of flower identity and diversity on reducing aphid populations via natural enemy communities

Zytynska

Eicher

Fahle

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Within the framework of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), understanding the ecology of the system is key to identifying the most suitable methods of pest control (Thomas, 1999). With estimated global yield losses of up to 40% from pests and pathogens (Savary et al., 2019), climate change-driven pest range expansion (Bebber et al., 2013), evolution of pesticide resistance (Whalon et al., 2008), and recent bans on many environmentally damaging pesticides (Bakker et al., 2020), alternative solutions to pest control are

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Perennial Flowering Strips for Conservation Biological Control of Insect Pests: From Picking and Mixing Flowers to Tailored Functional Diversity

Cited by 18 publications

References 94 publications

Management to Promote Flowering Understoreys Benefits Natural Enemy Diversity, Aphid Suppression and Income in an Agroforestry System

Management to Promote Flowering Understoreys Benefits Natural Enemy Diversity, Aphid Suppression and Income in an Agroforestry System

High Variability in Pre-Oviposition Time Independent of Diet Available at Eclosion: A key Reproductive Trait in the Ladybird Beetle Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in Its Native Range

Effect of flower identity and diversity on reducing aphid populations via natural enemy communities

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