Abstract
The relationship between crop richness and predator-prey interactions as they relate to pest-natural enemy systems is a very important topic in ecology and greatly affects biological control services. The effects of crop arrangement on predator-prey interactions have received much attention as the basis for pest population management. To explore the internal mechanisms and factors driving the relationship between crop richness and pest population management, we designed an experimental model system of a microlandscape that included 50 plots and five treatments. Each treatment had 10 repetitions in each year from 2007 to 2010. The results showed that the biomass of pests and their natural enemies increased with increasing crop biomass and decreased with decreasing crop biomass; however, the effects of plant biomass on the pest and natural enemy biomass were not significant. The relationship between adjacent trophic levels was significant (such as pests and their natural enemies or crops and pests), whereas non-adjacent trophic levels (crops and natural enemies) did not significantly interact with each other. The ratio of natural enemy/pest biomass was the highest in the areas of four crop species that had the best biological control service. Having either low or high crop species richness did not enhance the pest population management service and lead to loss of biological control. Although the resource concentration hypothesis was not well supported by our results, high crop species richness could suppress the pest population, indicating that crop species richness could enhance biological control services. These results could be applied in habitat management aimed at biological control, provide the theoretical basis for agricultural landscape design, and also suggest new methods for integrated pest management.
Highlights
The relationship between crop richness and predator-prey interactions as they relate to pest-natural enemy systems is a very important topic in ecology and greatly affects biological control services
The results showed that the biomass of pests and their natural enemies increased with increasing crop biomass and decreased with decreasing crop biomass; the effects of plant biomass on the pest and natural enemy biomass were not significant
The natural enemy biomass increased with increasing crop species richness, the differences were not significant (Figure 2B, F1.593=0.682, P=0.409)
Summary
The study region is located in the county of Yishui, Linyi City, Shandong Province, China (35°48′05′′N, 118°37′11′′E) and has a temperate maritime monsoon climate with an elevation of 101.1–916.1 m. The region receives an average 2421 h of sunshine annually and has an annual average temperature of 14.1°C. The value of effective accumulated temperatures above 10°C is 2390°C and the frost-free period is longer than 200 d. The average annual precipitation is 849 mm; the average annual evaporation capacity is 1773.5 mm. In the center of this agricultural region, grain is produced from several important crops (e.g., wheat, cotton, and corn) which grow mainly on Podzol E soil
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