Can natural enemy diversity ensure stable biological control in the future?
Jonsson, M., Feit, B., Bluethgen, N. and Straub, C. (2018). Can natural enemy diversity ensure stable biological control in the future?. 5th European Congress of Conservation Biology. doi: 10.17011/conference/eccb2018/108168
Date
2018Copyright
© the Authors, 2018
Natural enemy diversity generally strengthens biological control, but individual studies have found anything from positive to negative effects. However, most studies investigating the impacts of natural enemy diversity on pest suppression have focused on short term effects, while ignoring the stability in pest suppression across time and space. Theory predicts that a high diversity of redundant species (i.e., species currently doing the same job) should stabilize ecosystem functioning, since different species are likely to be important during different environmental conditions. This implies that a high natural enemy diversity should provide an insurance against global environmental change. We will here present how generalist predators contribute to stability of aphid biological control in Swedish barley fields under varying landscape complexity and climate change. We have found that ground dwelling predators such as spiders and carabids can reduce aphid pest damage with 50% in such fields, and that the level of aphid biological control is higher in more complex landscapes (Rusch et al. 2013). In recent work, exploring feeding preferences of the most common carabid and spider species on over ten prey types with molecular gut content analysis we have confirmed that these species are highly generalistic and that a high diversity of predators contribute to aphid biological control (Roubinet et al. 2017). Our preliminary analyses suggest that the level of redundancy in aphid predation increases with landscape complexity, suggesting that barley fields in complex landscapes not only currently has more effective aphid biological control but that the stability of aphid control is likely to be higher in such landscapes. We are currently investigating the climate niches of different predators in relation to temperature and rainfall. These niches will be combined into climate niches for predator communities in different types of landscapes and we will test if the level of climate resilience (Kühsel and Blüthgen 2015) in predator communities is higher in complex landscapes. Finally, we will conduct mesocosm experiments under different climate scenarios to test if predator communities with different levels of redundancy and climate resilience really contribute to more stable biological control of aphids.
(1) Rusch, A., Bommarco, R., Jonsson, M., Smith, H.G. & Ekbom, B. 2013. Flow and stability of natural pest control services depend on landscape complexity and crop rotation in the landscape. J Appl Ecol 50, 345-354.
(2) Roubinet, E., Birkhofer, K., Malsher, G., Staudacher, K., Ekbom, B., Traugott, M. & Jonsson, M. 2017. Diet of generalist predators reflects effects of cropping period and farming system on extra- and intraguild prey. Ecol Appl 27, 1167-1177.
(3) Kühsel, S. & Blüthgen N. 2015 High diversity stabilizes the thermal resilience of pollinator communities in intensively managed grasslands. Nature Comm 2015. 6: p. 7989.
...
![showless](/themes/JYX2//images/showless.png)
![showmore](/themes/JYX2//images/showmore.png)
Publisher
Open Science Centre, University of JyväskyläConference
ECCB2018: 5th European Congress of Conservation Biology. 12th - 15th of June 2018, Jyväskylä, Finland
Original source
https://peerageofscience.org/conference/eccb2018/108168/Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
- ECCB 2018 [712]
License
Related items
Showing items with similar title or keywords.
-
High Atlas cultural landscapes: Elucidating the links between cultural and biological diversity for conservation
Teixidor-Toneu, Irene; Diversity Foundation, Global (Open Science Centre, University of Jyväskylä, 2018)Rapid and profound social and environmental changes are threatening both biological diversity and traditional livelihoods in the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco. Due to the intimate links between human and non-human populations, ... -
Natural enemies emerging in cereal fields in spring may contribute to biological control
Tortosa, Axelle; Duflot, Rémi; Rivers‐Moore, Justine; Ladet, Sylvie; Esquerré, Diane; Vialatte, Aude (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022)1. Biological pest control is known to depend on landscape heterogeneity. However, such relationship shows irregular pattern and seems influenced by local farming practices and natural enemies that overwinter within crop ... -
Outside-host phage therapy as a biological control against environmental infectious diseases
Merikanto, Ilona; Laakso, Jouni; Kaitala, Veijo (BioMed Central, 2018)Background Environmentally growing pathogens present an increasing threat for human health, wildlife and food production. Treating the hosts with antibiotics or parasitic bacteriophages fail to eliminate diseases that ... -
Biological control of potato soft rot caused by Dickeya solani and the survival of bacterial antagonists under cold storage conditions
Hadizadeh, I.; Peivastegan, B.; Hannukkala, A.; van der Wolf, J. M.; Nissinen, Riitta; Pirhonen, M. (Blackwell Scientific, 2019)Dickeya and Pectobacterium are responsible for causing blackleg of plants and soft rot of tubers in storage and in the field, giving rise to losses in seed potato production. In an attempt to improve potato health, biocontrol ... -
Trait Self-Control, Social Cognition Constructs, and Intentions : Correlational Evidence for Mediation and Moderation Effects in Diverse Health Behaviours
Hagger, Martin; Hankonen, Nelli; Kangro, Eva-Maria; Lintunen, Taru; Pagaduan, Jeffrey; Polet, Juho; Ries, Francis; Hamilton, Kyra (Wiley, 2019)Background: We examined effects of trait self‐control, constructs from social cognition theories, and intentions on health behaviours. Trait self‐control was expected to predict health behaviour indirectly through theory ...