Abstract
Agricultural landscapes are globally dominated by monocultures under intensive management. This is one of the main reasons for biodiversity loss and insect population decline in many regions all over the world. Agroecosystem biodiversity in these areas can be enhanced by cropping system diversification, such as crop rotations. Yet, long‐term studies on effects of crop rotations on aboveground agrobiodiversity are lacking. We set up a 10‐year long‐term crop rotation experiment in Central Germany and monitored the temporal dynamics of aboveground arthropods over a full cultivation period to investigate influence of current and preceding crop identity and cropping system diversification on activity density, species richness, and community structure. We found that species composition was strongly influenced by currently grown crop although effect on arthropods varied between species groups. Especially, winter oilseed rape strongly affects arthropod community structure. Interestingly, we were also able to show an influence of the preceding crops, indicating an ecological memory effect in the aboveground arthropod community. Our results show that crop identity of both currently and previously grown crops in crop rotations may lead to an increase in arthropod activity density and changes in species composition. Diversified crop rotations including appropriate crops can be an easily implemented tool to increase arthropod biodiversity and biomass at large spatial and temporal scales, particularly in areas dominated by a single crop (e.g., wheat, maize). Our results may help to design optimized crop rotations for large‐scale enhancement of insect biodiversity in agroecosystems.
Highlights
Long‐term crop monocultures are still common in many parts of the world, yet evidence is mounting that more diverse cropping systems are needed to reconcile agricultural productivity and en‐ vironmental sustainability (Bennett, Bending, Chandler, Hilton, & Mills, 2012; Liebman & Schulte, 2015)
We set up a 10‐year long‐term crop rotation experiment in Central Germany and monitored the temporal dynamics of aboveground arthropods over a full cultivation period to investigate influence of current and preceding crop identity and cropping system diversification on activity density, species richness, and com‐ munity structure
We found that species composition was strongly influenced by currently grown crop effect on arthropods varied between species groups
Summary
The preceding crop (e.g., oilseed rape) may directly or indirectly affect organisms occurring in the main crop (e.g., wheat). Such ef‐ fects are an example of an ecological memory effect that has fre‐ quently been reported for soil systems (Bengtsson et al, 2003; Lapsansky, Milroy, Andales, & Vivanco, 2016; Ogle et al, 2015; Peterson, 2002). Plots that were included in the experiments are marked with colors according to currently grown crop as described in Figure 1 (GP, grain pea in pink; SB, sugar beet in black; SM, silage maize in blue; WR, winter oilseed rape in green; WW, winter wheat in yellow).
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