CNH-S: Linkages Among Farmer Decision Making, Beneficial Bird Species, and Pest Management in Fruit-Growing Systems

了解生态系统如何运作并为人类提供重要服务是21世纪的重大生态挑战之一。这项研究考察了捕食者物种如何通过消耗以作物为食的物种来减少农业生态系统中的作物损失，从而提供一种重要的生态系统服务，从而提高作物生产力。通过学习如何增加捕食者的数量和活动，农业生产力和环境质量应该会得到改善。加强这类生态系统服务越来越重要，因为有证据表明化学虫害管理的负面影响以及消费者对使用较少化学投入生产的食品的偏好。该项目调查了当研究人员在水果种植区提供巢箱时，捕食性鸟类的数量是否会增加，以及捕食性鸟类是否反过来通过捕食以作物为食的昆虫、啮齿动物和鸟类来减少对作物的损害。此外，该项目还调查了可能影响果农使用捕食者巢箱的决定的因素，包括经济和消费者偏好考虑。这项工作将使人们更多地了解在什么情况下人类可以加强生态系统服务的交付。它将提供影响果农采用以作物为食的物种管理策略的因素的信息。最后，它将记录巢箱计划对保护捕食性鸟类物种的价值。这项研究的重点是美国红隼，猎鹰，一种猎物物种损害樱桃，蓝莓和其他水果。这项工作解决了两个假设：1)红隼巢箱形式的资源补贴减少了猎物的活动和丰度，从而减少了对栽培水果的损害；2)水果生产的经济性、消费者对特定害虫管理技术的偏好以及红隼的保护将影响种植者关于安装巢箱的决定，并对农业区的巢箱项目的增长产生积极的反馈。研究人员将使用巢箱调查红隼和以作物为食的物种的丰度和活动，以及在有和没有红隼的情况下水果的危害。他们将计算在水果产区利用捕食者巢箱给个体种植者和地区经济带来的成本和收益。该项目将使用对果农的全国调查和面对面采访，以及建模方法，来调查影响种植者将捕食者巢箱作为害虫管理实践的因素。通过整合生态学、经济学和食物系统社会学的信息，该项目将提高对自然捕食者-猎物效应之间的联系的理解，人类通过向捕食者提供资源来操纵这种效应的程度，以及经济因素以外的因素影响种植者关于农业实践决策的可能性。

Understanding how ecosystems function and provide important services for humans is one of the great ecological challenges of the 21st century. This research examines how predator species contribute to reducing crop losses in agricultural ecosystems by consumption of crop-eating species, thereby providing an important ecosystem service that increases crop productivity. By learning how to enhance the abundance and activity of predators, agricultural productivity and environmental quality should improve. Strengthening this type of ecosystem service is increasingly important given evidence of negative effects of chemical pest management and consumer preferences for food produced with fewer chemical inputs. This project investigates whether predatory bird populations increase when researchers provide nest boxes in fruit-growing regions and whether the predatory birds in turn reduce crop damage by consuming crop-eating insects, rodents, and birds. Further, the project investigates factors that potentially influence fruit growers' decisions about the use of predator nest boxes, including economic and consumer-preference considerations. The work will result in greater knowledge about the contexts under which humans can enhance ecosystem service delivery. It will provide information about factors that influence fruit grower adoption of management strategies of crop-eating species. Finally, it will document the value of nest-box programs to the conservation of predatory bird species.This research focuses on the American kestrel, Falco sparverius, a falcon whose prey species damage cherries, blueberries, and other fruits. The work addresses two hypotheses: 1) resource subsidies in the form of nest boxes for kestrels reduce prey activity and abundance and, thus, reduce damage to cultivated fruit and 2) the economics of fruit production, consumer preferences for particular pest management techniques, and kestrel conservation will influence grower decisions about installing nest boxes, and produce positive feedbacks on the growth of nest-box programs in agricultural regions. Researchers will survey abundance and activity of kestrels and crop-eating species, as well as fruit damage, in landscapes with and without kestrels using nest boxes. They will calculate costs and benefits to individual growers and regional economies of utilizing predator nest boxes in fruit-producing regions. The project will use a national survey of fruit growers and in-person interviews, along with modeling approaches, to investigate factors that influence grower adoption of predator nest boxes as a pest management practice. By integrating information from ecology, economics, and food systems sociology, the project will improve understanding of linkages between natural predator-prey effects, the degree to which humans can manipulate such effects through providing resources to predators, and the potential for factors other than economic ones to influence grower decisions about agricultural practices.