Forest cover and proximity decrease herbivory and increase crop yield via enhanced natural enemies in soybean fields

Non-crop habitats are essential for sustaining biodiversity of beneficial arthropods in agricultural landscapes, which can increase ecosystem services provision and crop yield. However, their effects on specific crop systems are less clear, such as soybean in South America, where the responses of pests and natural enemies to landscape structure have only recently been studied.

Here, we analyzed how native forest fragments at local and landscape scales influenced arthropod communities, herbivory, and yield in soybean fields in central Argentina. To do this, we selected soybean fields located in agricultural landscapes with varying proportions of forest cover. At two distances (10 and 100m) from a focal forest fragment, we sampled natural enemy and herbivore arthropods, and measured soybean herbivory and yield. We focused on herbivore diversity, abundance of key soybean pests in the region (caterpillars and stink bugs), and their generalist and specialist natural enemies.

Higher ab...