Lessons of the Changes in the Arthropod Population Composition in the Hungarian Apple Orchard in the Last Six Decades

Abstract

About 2500 arthropod species immigrate, or carried by wind, or introduced by man in the orchards, under Hungarian climatic conditions. However, the number of the apple pest species is approximately 30. Owing to the effect of the relationships among the plant-phytophagous-zoophagous species those could colonize the orchard for which the apple provides suitable food sources and whose populations are not regulated or are regulated by a weak efficiency by parasitoids and predators. These populations create the primary pest communities. When the individual number of the parasitoid and predator species is reduced by the broad-spectrum insecticides, the population density of those phytophagous species could increase whose populations was restricted up to that time. In this case the secondary pest communities could develop. The integrated pest management provides the possibilities to solve the problems caused by the regular use of broad-spectrum insecticides. The real requirement is to find and to harmonize those methods which regulate the population dynamics of the species of the primary pest communities.