Floral resource strips enhance parasitoid abundance and diversity in apple orchards and promote agroecological advances in a South African biosphere reserve

Agricultural intensification drives insect declines, including those of parasitoids, through landscape simplification and extensive use of synthetic pesticides. Spatially heterogeneous agricultural landscapes are potentially important biodiversity reservoirs where non-crop habitats may support populations providing ecosystem services to farming. However, there is a need to find methods to support this transition to more sustainable farming and support the progressive concept of biosphere reserves. We focus here on the relationship between apple orchards and sclerophyllous natural fynbos vegetation in the megadiverse Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, Cape Floristic Region, South Africa.  We established patches of floral resources within apple orchards, which are embedded in landscapes, equivalent to the transition zone of the KBR, with varying proportions of natural habitat in a 500 m radius around orchards. We assessed the role of these enhanced floral resources for supporting parasitoi..., , # Floral resource strips enhance parasitoid abundance and diversity in apple orchards and promote agroecological advances in a South African biosphere reserve

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.dz08kps99](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dz08kps99)

## Description of the data and file structure

Associated data files for:

Ratto et al (2025) Floral resource strips enhance parasitoid abundance and diversity in apple orchards and promote agroecological advances in a South African biosphere reserve

Metadata for NE.csv file

Column Entry Value Unit Explanatation Remark

A Sample Numerical pan trap number

B Round Categorical \"First round (A), Second round (B)\"

C Habitat wrow-noncrop-nat wrow= workrow between tree lines; non-crop= non planted area surroding the orchard; nat = fynbos in the wider surrouding

D Position 1-3-blank \"1=close to egde, 3=40m into the orchard\" (NA = not applicable as it does not apply to areas outside the orchards, i.e.non-crop and fynbos)

E Flowers Simple-Diverse-Con...,