Forest cover enhances natural enemy diversity and biological control services in Brazilian sun coffee plantations

Abstract

Landscape structure and crop management directly affect insect communities, which can influence agriculturally relevant ecosystem services and disservices. However, little is known about the effect of landscape structure and local factors on pests, natural enemies, and biological control services in the Neotropics. We investigated how environmental conditions at local and landscape levels affect Leucoptera coffeella (insect pest), social wasps (natural enemies), and the provision of biological control services in 16 Brazilian coffee plantations under different crop management and landscape contexts. We considered microclimatic conditions, coffee plantation size, and management intensity at the local level; and forest cover, landscape diversity, and edge density at the landscape level. Pest population, wasp communities, and biocontrol services were monitored in wet and dry seasons when L. coffeella outbreaks occur. We found that the amount of forest in the surrounding landscape was more important for explaining patterns than the local environment, landscape diversity, or landscape configuration. In both seasons, L. coffeella was negatively affected by forest cover, whereas biological control and richness and abundance of social wasps increased with increasing forest cover at multiple spatial scales. Moreover, biological control was positively correlated with wasp abundance during pest outbreaks, suggesting that social wasps are important natural enemies and provide pest control services within coffee plantations. We provide the first empirical evidence that forest cover is important for the maintenance of social wasp diversity and associated pest control services in a Brazilian coffee-producing region.

Diversity, Abundance, and Distribution Patterns of Natural Enemy Insects on Chili (Capsicum annum L.) in Bincau Village, Banjar Regency, South Kalimantan

“…It can be seen from the line's length formed in Figure 2 and the height of the graph in Figure 3 (Trianto & Purwanto, 2020;Yudha et al, 2019). That is also following the statement by Medeiros et al (2019) that temperature is one of the environmental parameters that affect the presence of natural enemy insects in an ecosystem. The temperature obtained in this study is the optimum temperature required by natural enemy insects to reproduce.…”

Positive forest cover effects on coffee yields are consistent across regions

“…Landscape simplification negatively affects biodiversity and ecosystem service provision (Dainese et al, 2019;Sirami et al, 2019). On the other hand, landscapes with more interspersed configuration between coffee fields and forest fragments were proven, at a smaller scales, to have higher bee diversity and crop pest control, which contribute to coffee yields (Aristizábal & Metzger, 2019;Hipólito et al, 2018;Librán-Embid et al, 2017;Medeiros et al, 2019;Saturni et al, 2016).…”

A Comprehensive Review of the Coffee Leaf Miner Leucoptera Coffeella (Lepidoptera: Lyonetiidae), With Special Regard to Neotropical Impacts, Pest Management and Control

“…Ecologically complex coffee systems are associated with higher biodiversity of parasitoid wasps, ants, and other predators [66]. For instance, richness and abundance of social wasps is positively correlated with forest cover in coffee-producing regions, increasing L. coffeella predation [67].…”