Disentangling the interrelated abiotic and biotic pathways linking landscape composition and crop production

Landscape composition and its related functional agrobiodiversity (FAB) was severely simplified during the last decades. As landscape composition is expected to influence the interrelated microclimate and arthropod community at different scales, this simplification might have led to a decline in multiple agro-ecosystem services, with potential impacts for the growth of crops with different demands from the environment.
To study landscape-scale effects on multi-crop yield and herbivory in combination with its potential drivers, including functional arthropod community and microclimate, we used standardised 1 m² mini-gardens planted with ten different vegetable crops as phytometers. The gardens were installed at locations varying in surrounding landscape composition and the vegetables were selected to have contrasting requirements in terms of growing conditions, pollination services, and susceptibility to pests. Monitoring of the mini-gardens was performed in 2018 and 2019 in Flanders (B...