Crop diversification to promote arthropod pest management: A review

Abstract

Agricultural intensification has led to a drastic simplification and homogenization of agroecosystems, causing biodiversity loss and an increased reliance on chemical pesticides to control arthropod crop pests. However, these pesticides have major negative impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human health. Restoring plant diversity in agricultural landscapes could revert this trend, promote biological pest control and reduce the reliance on chemical insecticides. Crop diversification is especially useful to promote populations of pests’ natural enemies and reduce pest densities, since it does not require a reduction in cropped areas compared to set-aside strategies based on non-crop habitats. We review recent advances on the benefits of crop diversification for arthropod pest control and cover the important ecological mechanisms, tools and scales to implement crop diversification. We also compare the relative benefits of crop and non-crop diversification strategies based on estimates from published meta-analyses. Finally, we summarise the benefits of crop diversification beyond biological control, and highlight the main constraints currently preventing wider implementation to guide future research directions.