Diverse crop fields let predator bugs outpace pest insects
Wan NF, Li M, Shen S, Zhou JX, Zhu YT
Crop Improvement
If you plant a mixed vegetable bed instead of a single crop, you're likely stacking the odds toward ladybugs and predatory wasps and away from the aphids and caterpillars eating your harvest.
Scientists looked at nearly 150 studies from farms, meadows, and forests around the world to see what happens when you grow more kinds of plants together instead of one. On farms, more plant variety let predator insects like ladybugs and parasitic wasps build up much faster than the pest insects they eat, which is great news for keeping crops healthy. In wild grasslands and forests, more plant variety just meant more of everything, both plant-eaters and their predators grew in number together, showing that nature's pest control works differently depending on where you are.
Key Findings
Organic croplands with higher plant diversity showed an 846% increase in the ratio of natural enemies to herbivores, while nonorganic croplands showed a 148% increase.
Grasslands and forests showed smaller enemy-to-herbivore ratio increases of 4.73% and 21.2% respectively, reflecting bottom-up growth of both herbivores and predators rather than top-down pest suppression.
The analysis pooled 149 field studies across five continents, spanning agricultural and natural ecosystems, to compare top-down versus bottom-up biodiversity effects.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A massive analysis of 149 studies worldwide found that planting more crop diversity on farms boosts natural pest predators far more than it boosts pests, while in grasslands and forests, more plant diversity boosts both bugs and their predators roughly equally.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Plant diversity modifies multi-trophic interactions in croplands, grasslands and forests.
Multitrophic interactions can strongly influence the structure and functioning of ecosystems, but how plant diversity influences the direction and predictability of multitrophic interactions across...
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