Data from: Pest control potential of adjacent agri-environment schemes varies with crop type and is shaped by landscape context and within-field position

Increasing natural pest control in agricultural fields is an important aim
of ecological intensification. Combined effects of landscape context and
local placement of agri-environmental schemes on natural pest control and
within field distance functions of natural pest control agents have rarely
been addressed but might affect the distribution of biocontrol providers.
Importantly, it is currently unknown whether ecosystem services provided
by adjacent agri-environmental schemes (AES) are consistent for different
crop types during crop rotation. In this study, we assessed whether crop
rotation from oilseed rape to cereals altered within-field distance
functions of ground dwelling predators from adjacent agri-environmental
fields along a gradient in landscape context. Additionally we recorded
crop pests, predation rates, parasitoids as well as crop yields on a total
of 30 study sites. Distance functions varied between trophic levels:
Carabid richness decreased while densities of carabid beetles, staphylinid
beetles as well as crop yields increased towards the field centres.
Distance functions of parasitoids and pests were modulated by the amount
of semi-natural habitat in the surrounding landscape, while the effects of
adjacent AES were limited. Distance decay functions found for ground
dwelling predators in oilseed rape in the previous year were not always
present in cereals. Increasing distance to the field edge also increased
effects of crop rotation on carabid beetle assemblages, indicating a
source habitat function of field edges. Synthesis and applications.
Distance functions of natural pest control are not universal and the
effects of agri-environmental schemes (AES) in different adjacent crops
during crop rotation vary and depends on ecological contrasts. A network
of semi-natural habitats and spatially optimised AES habitats can benefit
pest control in agricultural landscapes, but constraints as a result of
crop type need to be addressed by annually targeted, spatially shifting
AES schemes for different crops.