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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agroecology and Ecosystem Services
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1336888

Arthropod Arbiters: Pest and natural enemy communities mediate the effects of landscape and local-scale complexity on crop loss due to Lygus in organic strawberries

Provisionally accepted
Adrian Lu Adrian Lu 1*David Gonthier David Gonthier 2Amber R. Sciligo Amber R. Sciligo 3Karina Garcia Karina Garcia 2Taiki Chiba Taiki Chiba 1Gila Juarez Gila Juarez 1Claire Kremen Claire Kremen 4
  • 1 University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
  • 2 University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
  • 3 The Organic Center, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
  • 4 University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Sustainable pest management requires growers and regional land managers to consider the relationships among pest management practices, pest and natural enemy communities, crop loss, and multi-scalar habitat complexity. However, the causal links among these variables, in particular potential interactions between landscape and local-scale habitat complexity, remain underexplored. In the context of organically managed strawberry crops in California's Central Coast, we tested the independent effects of landscape and local habitat complexity gradients on arthropod communities and crop loss using a piecewise structural equation model (PSEM). We found that landscape-scale woody habitat proportion indirectly decreased crop loss through its positive effect on natural enemy abundance, while grassland proportion had the opposite effect due to its association with an important strawberry pest species (Lygus spp.,). We detected a pattern suggesting that on-farm diversification practices are most effective at reducing crop loss at an intermediate level (26%) of woody habitat proportion. Both organic-compliant insecticide application and tractor vacuuming negatively impacted natural enemies, and therefore had qualified effects on crop loss. Our study shows the key role of native woodlands and natural enemy communities in reducing crop loss and highlights the importance of managing habitat complexity at both landscape and local scales.

    Keywords: landscape and local habitat complexity, piecewise structural equation modeling, Landscape composition, plant diversity, pest management, Pest Control, ecosystem services, natural enemies

    Received: 11 Nov 2023; Accepted: 27 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lu, Gonthier, Sciligo, Garcia, Chiba, Juarez and Kremen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Adrian Lu, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.