Abstract
In human‐modified landscapes, important ecological functions such as predation are negatively affected by anthropogenic activities, including the use of pesticides and habitat degradation. Predation of insect pests is an indicator of healthy ecosystem functioning, which provides important ecosystem services, especially for agricultural systems. In this study, we compare predation attempts from arthropods, mammals, and birds on artificial caterpillars in the understory, between three tropical agricultural land‐use types: oil palm plantations, rubber tree plantations, and fruit orchards. We collected a range of local and landscape‐scale data including undergrowth vegetation structure; elevation; proximity to forest; and canopy cover in order to understand how environmental variables can affect predation. In all three land‐use types, our results showed that arthropods and mammals were important predators of artificial caterpillars and there was little predation by birds. We did not find any effect of the environmental variables on predation. There was an interactive effect between land‐use type and predator type. Predation by mammals was considerably higher in fruit orchards and rubber tree than in oil palm plantations, likely due to their ability to support higher abundances of insectivorous mammals. In order to maintain or enhance natural pest control in these common tropical agricultural land‐use types, management practices that benefit insectivorous animals should be introduced, such as the reduction of pesticides, improvement of understory vegetation, and local and landscape heterogeneity.
Highlights
The contribution of natural enemies of insect pests as biological control agents has increasingly attracted attention, as farmers search for more environmentally friendly alternatives to pesticides (de Groot, Wilson, & Boumans, 2002; Wood, 2002)
We identified which natural predators are likely to be effective biological control agents in the understory of fruit orchards, oil palm plantations, and rubber tree plantations by assessing attack marks left by predators on artificial caterpillars (Curtis et al, 2013)
Our models showed that there was no difference in the total amount of predation of artificial caterpillars between oil palm plantations, rubber tree plantations, and fruit orchards (Table 3)
Summary
The contribution of natural enemies of insect pests as biological control agents has increasingly attracted attention, as farmers search for more environmentally friendly alternatives to pesticides (de Groot, Wilson, & Boumans, 2002; Wood, 2002). | 655 fauna (Le Roux et al, 2008) and have been blamed for destroying natural pest control services in various agricultural systems. The promotion of natural biological control agents can potentially reduce chemical usage and labor costs in various agricultural systems (Cleveland et al, 2006; Kellermann, Johnson, Stercho, & Hackett, 2008; MEA, 2005; Sekercioglu, 2012). The presence of biological control agents is strongly affected by vegetation characteristics as heterogeneous vegetation offers a variety of resources and niches (Azhar et al, 2015; Denmead et al, 2017; Nurdiansyah et al, 2016). Agricultural areas which have greater landscape heterogeneity show higher predation compared with landscapes which are predominantly monocultures (Rusch et al, 2016)
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