Functional Traits Mediate the Natural Enemy Response to Land Use at the Local Scale

María Noel Szudruk Pascual (), Verónica Chillo, Lucas A. Garibaldi and Mariano M. Amoroso
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María Noel Szudruk Pascual: Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural, San Carlos de Bariloche 8400, Río Negro, Argentina
Verónica Chillo: Instituto de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias de Bariloche (IFAB), INTA-CONICET, El Bolsón 8430, Río Negro, Argentina
Lucas A. Garibaldi: Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural, San Carlos de Bariloche 8400, Río Negro, Argentina
Mariano M. Amoroso: Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural, San Carlos de Bariloche 8400, Río Negro, Argentina

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-13

Abstract: Arthropods are key nodes for the provision of ecosystem services such as pest control, but their response to land-use change is highly variable depending on the scale of analysis and the natural enemies’ life histories. We evaluate the effects of landscape- and local-scale variables of natural enemies’ communities on small-scale agriculture. We consider functional response traits to attain a mechanistic understanding of the effect of land-use changes on the biodiversity and resilience of natural enemies’ communities. Predator and parasitoid arthropods were collected from thirteen raspberry farms to estimate functional diversity, complementarity, and redundancy indices. We found no effects of landscape heterogeneity, local habitat, or management practices on natural enemies’ functional diversity. Regarding resilience, complementarity was high at most of the sites and was not affected by the landscape or local variables. However, redundancy was affected by two management practices. Weed control decreased natural enemies’ abundance as well as the abundance of walker generalist predators and flying specialist parasitoids, while habitat richness decreased flying generalist predators. These results highlight the importance of management when the landscape matrix is heterogeneous. We conclude that small-scale agriculture in a heterogeneous landscape supports a functionally diverse enemy community, potentially promoting the resilience of pest control to land-use change.

Keywords: landscape heterogeneity; biological pest control; agricultural management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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