Natural enemy interactions constrain pest control in complex agricultural landscapes

Natural enemy interactions constrain pest control in complex agricultural landscapes.

Biological control of pests by natural enemies is a major ecosystem service delivered to agriculture worldwide. Quantifying and predicting its effectiveness at large spatial scales is critical for increased sustainability of agricultural production. Landscape complexity is known to benefit natural enemies, but its effects on interactions between natural enemies and the consequences for crop dam...

Dual Defense: Pest-resistant Turf and Natural Enemy Interactions

Pest control of aphids depends on landscape complexity and natural enemy interactions.

Aphids are a major concern in agricultural crops worldwide, and control by natural enemies is an essential component of the ecological intensification of agriculture. Although the complexity of agricultural landscapes is known to influence natural enemies of pests, few studies have measured the degree of pest control by different enemy guilds across gradients in landscape complexity. Here, we u...

Theoretical Study of Pest Control Using Stage Structured Natural Enemies with Maturation Delay: A Crop-Pest-Natural Enemy Model

In the natural world, there are many insect species whose individual members have a life history that takes them through two stages, immature and mature. Moreover, the rates of survival, development, and reproduction almost always depend on age, size, or development stage. Keeping this in mind, in this paper, a three species crop-pest-natural enemy food chain model with two stages for natural e...

Arthropod Diversity and Pest Suppression in Agricultural Landscapes

Research at the Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research site (KBS LTER) is focused on understanding the ecological interactions underlying the productivity of row-crop ecosystems. Within these systems, insect pests and weeds represent two major groups of organisms that farmers must consistently and effectively manage. Since its inception in 1989, entomologists associated with K...