Pest regulation ecosystem services in croplands under changing landscape conditions

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Predation by naturally-occurring insects and arthropods can help to control damage to crops caused by insect pests. This biological pest control is part of a portfolio of measures used by farmers to prevent an estimated 18% loss in crop yields, globally, that would otherwise be caused by pests. However, biological control depends on the availability of habitat in agricultural landscapes. Intensive management practices in croplands such as clearing vegetation to expand fields, and climate stressors such as drought, have the potential to affect this ecosystem service by removing or disturbing habitats that support the natural enemies of crop pests. My research program investigates risks to pest regulation ecosystem services by studying the response of natural enemies to changing landscape conditions, such as vegetation clearance and drought, and by exploring the effects natural enemies may have on pest regulation and crop yields. My team of 13 trainees (7 undergraduates, 4 Master's and 2 Doctoral) will use an approach that focuses on the traits of these predators (i.e., their morphological, behavioural, or physiological characteristics). We will collect data in crop fields chosen to represent current landscape conditions that may become more (or less) common in future. Using these data, trainees will test hypotheses that connect current conditions, such as the availability of non-crop vegetation or moisture in a field, with natural enemies and their traits, and model the sensitivity of pest regulation to changes in these conditions. While doing so, trainees will develop transferrable skills in landscape ecology, community ecology, entomology, remote sensing, and advanced statistical methods. At a time of rapid global change, my research program explores a critical connection between biodiversity and ecosystem function that is at risk of disruption. By focusing on the traits of organisms that are present in fields, rather than on the species themselves, our findings will be translatable across cropping systems and continents, contributing to emerging international dialogues on the risks to ecosystem services under global change. We will further innovate by measuring the consequences of pest regulation for crop yield, using precision agricultural data collected from harvesting equipment, and we will develop a new approach for modelling traits and their relationship with services. This work forms part of a longer-term landscape ecological research program aimed at understanding how the environmental conditions in croplands may affect multiple ecosystem services.