Association between patterns in agricultural landscapes and the abundance of wheat aphids and their natural enemies

Abstract

Effect of different landscape patterns on insect distribution and diversity was determined by studying wheat fields in complex and simple agricultural landscapes. We studied the influence of simple and complex agricultural landscapes on wheat aphids and their natural enemies in terms of the time of migration, abundance, population growth rate of the aphids and parasitoid abundance. The results indicate that the diversity of natural enemies is greater in the complex agricultural landscape and the effect of natural enemies on the abundance of wheat aphids was greater in the complex non-crop habitat. Wheat aphid hyperparasitoid populations differed in different agricultural landscapes with a greater number of parasites in complex agricultural landscapes. Resident times of predatory natural enemies differ in simple and complex agricultural landscapes. The number and types of predatory natural enemies are higher in complex than simple agricultural landscapes. Aphid population growth rates and the maximum population densities of wheat aphids differed significantly in simple and complex landscapes. Maximum population densities of different wheat aphids were very different in simple and complex landscape structures. The population growth rates and maximum population densities of the different predatory natural enemies and hyperparasitoids differed greatly.