Arthropods and biofuel production systems in North America

Abstract

Biomass harvest may eventually be conducted on over 100 000 000 ha of US crop and forest lands to meet federally‐mandated targets for renewable biofuels. Such large‐scale land use changes could profoundly impact working landscapes and the arthropod communities that inhabit them. We review the literature on dedicated biofuel crops and biomass harvest from forests to look for commonalities in arthropod community responses. With expanded biofuel production, existing arthropod pests of biofuel crops will likely become more important and new pests will emerge. Beneficial arthropods will also be influenced by biofuel crop habitats, potentially altering the distribution of pollination and pest control services to the surrounding landscape. Production of biofuel crops including initial crop selection, genetic improvement, agronomic practices, and harvest regimes will also influence arthropod communities. In turn, arthropods will impact the productivity and species composition of biomass production systems. Some of these processes have the potential to cause landscape‐level changes in arthropod community dynamics and insect‐vectored plant diseases. Finally, changes in arthropod populations and their spatiotemporal distribution in the landscape will have impacts on consumers of insects at higher trophic levels, potentially influencing their population and community dynamics and producing feedbacks to arthropod communities. Given that dedicated biofuel crops and intensified biomass harvest from forests are still relatively uncommon in North America, as they increase, we anticipate ‘predictably unpredictable’ shifts in arthropod communities and the ecosystem services and functions they support. We suggest that research on arthropod dynamics within biofuel crops, their spillover into adjacent habitats, and implications for the sustainability of working landscapes are critical topics for both basic and applied investigations.

Agroenergy Crops Influence the Diversity, Biomass, and Guild Structure of Terrestrial Arthropod Communities

“…Maximizing arthropod biodiversity and arthropod-mediated ecosystem services in future agricultural landscapes will require an understanding of the role of crop placement and landscape context [14,17]. With economic incentives for corn ethanol production in the USA driving the rapid expansion of corn production [11], coinciding reductions in land cover diversity and biocontrol services in nearby agricultural fields have been documented [8,23].…”

“…Expansion of biomass production may alter ability of landscapes to sponsor ecosystem services [8,17,23] because changes in landscape composition and structure can affect important functional groups differently [37]. To address this, we derived landscape characteristics within a 1.5-km radius of each study site using the 2009 Cropland Data Layer (56 m resolution) [38].…”

“…Any changes in the way that humans appropriate plant biomass for bioenergy production are likely to shape the functioning of agricultural landscapes. Herbivorous arthropods will act as pests of biomass crops, capable of reducing the quantity or quality of biomass harvested [17]. Conversely, other arthropod groups such as decomposers, pollinators, predators, and parasitoids will enhance nutrient mineralization and plant performance in biomass crops [18,19], enhance pollination services [20], and assist in the control of herbivorous crop pests [17,21], respectively.…”

“…Conversely, other arthropod groups such as decomposers, pollinators, predators, and parasitoids will enhance nutrient mineralization and plant performance in biomass crops [18,19], enhance pollination services [20], and assist in the control of herbivorous crop pests [17,21], respectively. Insomuch as expansion of biomass production can shape arthropod communities and influence arthropod biodiversity, selection of biomass crops can change the ways arthropod-mediated ecosystem services such as pollination and pest suppression are distributed in agricultural landscapes [14,17].…”

Effects of Small-Scale Dead Wood Additions on Beetles in Southeastern U.S. Pine Forests

“…With demand for forest products continuing to rise (especially now with a growing interest in biofuel production, see [21,22]), understanding the role of dead wood in maintaining biodiversity, tree productivity and long-term forest sustainability is becoming more important in forest management. Of particular value are studies investigating the effects of dead wood manipulations on these interests.…”