Local Management and Landscape Use Intensity Associated with a Coffee Leaf-Chewing Beetle

Abstract

Agroecological factors at local-management and landscape scales influence organisms residing in agriculture. Management for control of insect pests of agricultural commodities can be facilitated by our knowledge of these factors. We sampled for a minor coffee pest, a leaf-chewing beetle (Rhabdopterus jansoni), across sites that varied in coffee shade management and landscape land use composition. We show that R. jansoni abundance increased with higher local shade tree density, and the percentage of high-shade plantations and habitat diversity in the surrounding landscape. Sites at lower elevations also had more R. jansoni than at higher elevations. This study suggests that this minor pest prefers high-shade plantations, landscapes dominated by high-shade coffee land use, and lower elevations. These results will be useful for understanding this pest’s population dynamics with continuing shade intensification and climate change occurring in the Mexican and Central American coffee growing region.