Disentangling arthropod and plant resources consumed by Orius spp. in peach and alfalfa crops by metagenomic analysis

Abstract Agricultural intensification is affecting the biological control of insect pests, an important component for sustainable crop production. To understand changing patterns abundance within agroecosystem, it necessary to disentangle trophic interactions between species, and metabarcoding excellent alternative show them. In Ebro Basin (NE Iberian Peninsula), agricultural landscapes are composed a mosaic crops scattered with natural semi-natural habitats, where presence Orius spp., used as biocontrol agents, well known. shed light on their predatory role in this area, previously developed multi-primer method has been study arthropod plant most frequently resources consumed by some field-collected , sampled at different dates peach alfalfa adjacent crop. Their high-throughput sequencing (HTS) analysis showed consumption 15 12 taxa. Eight them were O. laevigatus six majusculus 23 niger . The obtained results that HTS powerful tool studies agroecosystems. Among detected arthropods, other enemies present, showing certain degree intraguild predation, which demonstrated developing new added strategy bioinformatic analysis. Detected indicates forages several movement from crops. These plants could have potential attracting or maintaining these predators both strategies.