Crop pests and predators exhibit inconsistent responses to surrounding landscape composition

Responses of Crop Pests and Natural Enemies to Wildflower Borders Depends on Functional Group

Increased homogeneity of agricultural landscapes in the last century has led to a loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, management practices such as wildflower borders offer supplementary resources to many beneficial arthropods. There is evidence that these borders can increase beneficial arthropod abundance, including natural enemies of many pests. However, this increase in loc...

Spatio-Temporal Variation in Landscape Composition May Speed Resistance Evolution of Pests to Bt Crops

Transgenic crops that express insecticide genes from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are used worldwide against moth and beetle pests. Because these engineered plants can kill over 95% of susceptible larvae, they can rapidly select for resistance. Here, we use a model for a pyramid two-toxin Bt crop to explore the consequences of spatio-temporal variation in the area of Bt crop and non-Bt refuge ha...

Modelling Landscape-Level Numerical Responses of Predators to Prey: The Case of Cats and Rabbits

Predator-prey systems can extend over large geographical areas but empirical modelling of predator-prey dynamics has been largely limited to localised scales. This is due partly to difficulties in estimating predator and prey abundances over large areas. Collection of data at suitably large scales has been a major problem in previous studies of European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and their...

Effects of a killed-cover crop mulching system on sweetpotato production, soil pests, and insect predators in South Carolina.

Sweetpotatoes, Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam. (Convolvulaceae), are typically grown on bare soil where weeds and erosion can be serious problems. Conservation tillage systems using cover crop residues as mulch can help reduce these problems, but little is known about how conservation tillage affects yield and quality of sweetpotato or how these systems impact populations of beneficial and pest insec...

Insect Pests and Arthropod Predators Associated with Tree-Turf Landscapes