Landscape simplification reduces classical biological control and crop yield

Agricultural intensification resulting in the simplification of agricultural landscapes is known to negatively impact the delivery of key ecosystem services such as the biological control of crop pests. Both conservation and classical biological control may be influenced by the landscape context in which they are deployed; yet studies examining the role of landscape structure in the establishment and success of introduced natural enemies and their interactions with native communities are lacking. In this study, we investigated the relationship between landscape simplification, classical and conservation biological control services and importantly, the outcome of these interactions for crop yield. We showed that agricultural simplification at the landscape scale is associated with an overall reduction in parasitism rates of crop pests. Additionally, only introduced parasitoids were identified, and no native parasitoids were found in crop habitat irrespective of agricultural landscape sim...

众所周知，农业集约化导致农业景观简化，该过程会对关键生态系统服务的供给产生负面影响，例如作物害虫的生物防治。保护生物防治（conservation biological control）与经典生物防治（classical biological control）均可能受到其实施所在的景观背景的影响；然而目前仍缺乏探讨景观结构在引入天敌的定殖与成功存活过程中所扮演的角色，以及其与本地群落间相互作用的相关研究。本研究探讨了景观简化与经典、保护生物防治服务之间的关联，尤为重要的是，还分析了这些相互作用对作物产量的影响。研究结果表明，景观尺度上的农业简化与作物害虫寄生率的整体下降存在关联。此外，本次研究仅识别出引入的寄生蜂（parasitoid），且无论农业景观简化程度如何，作物生境中均未发现本地寄生蜂。