Non-crop vegetation of field margins provides resources for natural enemies of crop herbivores. However, it is still not well known whether this resource provisioning effect is strong enough to improve herbivore regulation within crop fields and which plant species and functional groups favour this ecosystem service. A better understanding of the interactions between field margin vegetation and herbivore regulation is crucial to evaluate management strategies and to design suppressive plant mixtures. We surveyed 64 wheat and oilseed rape fields of Western identification of plant species influencing several response variables of herbivore regulation at the same time. Our study demonstrated the importance of entomophilous species that flowered at peak infestation of crop herbivores. Spontaneous field margins rich in flowering entomophilous species provide an important ecosystem service without expensive sowing of seed mixtures.
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