Abstract
Agricultural intensification is one of the major drivers of biotic homogenization and has multiple levels ranging from within-field management intensity to landscape-scale simplification. The enhancement of invertebrate assemblages by establishing new, semi-natural habitats, such as set-aside fields can improve biological pest control in adjacent crops, and mitigate the adverse effect of biotic homogenization. In this study we aimed to examine the effects of ecological intensification in winter wheat fields in Hungary. We tested how pests and their natural enemies were affected at different spatial scales by landscape composition (proportion of semi-natural habitats in the surrounding matrix), configuration (presence of adjacent set-aside fields), and local field management practices, such as fertilizer (NPK) applications without applying insecticides. We demonstrated that at the local scale, decreased fertilizer usage had no direct effect either on pests or their natural enemies. Higher landscape complexity and adjacent semi-natural habitats seem to be the major drivers of decreasing aphid abundance, suggesting that these enhanced the predatory insect assemblages. Additionally, the high yield in plots with no adjacent set-aside fields suggests that intensive management can compensate for the lower yields on the extensive plots. Our results demonstrated that although complexity at the landscape scale was crucial for maintaining invertebrate assemblages, divergence in their response to pests and pathogens could also be explained by different dispersal abilities. Although the landscape attributes acted as dispersal filters in the organization of pest and pathogen assemblages in croplands, the presence of set-aside fields negatively influenced aphid abundance due to their between-field isolation effect.
Highlights
Landscape simplification has been suspected to influence the local patterns of species richness and abundance, because of the reduced capacity to support large species-pools, and the lack of opportunity for spill-over between different habitats (Tscharntke et al, 2012; Karp et al, 2018; Dainese et al, 2019)
We looked for clues whether the number of newly established, semi-natural habitats adjacent to winter wheat fields could act as proxies for Ecological intensification (EI)
We found that adjacent set-aside fields and landscape complexity seemed to be the drivers of the reduction in aphid abundance and the prevalence of pathogenic fungi
Summary
Landscape simplification has been suspected to influence the local patterns of species richness and abundance, because of the reduced capacity to support large species-pools, and the lack of opportunity for spill-over between different habitats (Tscharntke et al, 2012; Karp et al, 2018; Dainese et al, 2019). Natural enemies, and soil decomposers are key factors for production in the various economically important crop systems (Bartomeus, Gagic & Bommarco, 2015; Klein et al, 2015; Tamburini et al, 2016). These groups provide regulatory ecosystem services (ES), often influenced by field management, landscape composition and configuration (Karp et al, 2018). Growing evidence suggests that ecologically intensified farming can safeguard food production and mitigate its adverse effects on the natural environment, the conscious use of ES providers (natural enemies, pollinators, decomposers, etc.) is still scarce (Bommarco, Kleijn & Potts, 2013; Martin et al, 2015). Geographical bias exists: most of the studies on the relationship between farmland diversity (as a proxy for available ESs) and agricultural management have emerged from Western Europe (Tryjanowski et al, 2011; Sutcliffe et al, 2015) and North America (Kleijn et al, 2019)
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