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Parasitoid Diversity Reduces the Variability in Pest Control Services Across Time on Farms by Sarina Macfadyen; Paul G. Craze; Andrew Polaszek; Kees van Achterberg; Jane Memmott is a Environmental Science article available to read on EtoBox.

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Recent declines in biodiversity have increased interest in the link between biodiversity and the provision and sustainability of ecosystem services across space and time. We mapped the complex network of interactions between herbivores and parasitoids to examine the relationship between parasitoid species richness, functional group diversity and the provision of natural pest control services. Quantitative food webs were constructed for 10 organic and 10 conventional farms. Parasitoid species richness varied from 26 to 58 species and we found a significant positive relationship between parasitoid species richness and temporal stability in parasitism rates. Higher species richness was associated with lower variation in parasitism rate. A functional group analysis showed significantly greater parasitoid species complementarity on organic farms, with on average more species in each functional group. We simulated parasitoid removal to predict whether organic farms experienced greater robustness of parasitism in the face of local extinctions. This analysis showed no consistent differences between the organic and conventional farm pairs in terms of loss of pest control service. Finally, i

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Author

Sarina Macfadyen; Paul G. Craze; Andrew Polaszek; Kees van Achterberg; Jane Memmott

Publisher

The Royal Society (ISSN 0080-4649)

Published

2011

Language

EN

Field

Environmental Science (Life Sciences)