Interactions between conservation agricultural practice and landscape composition promote weed seed predation by invertebrates

• Published in: Agriculture, ecosystems & environment Vol. 240; pp. 45 - 53
• Main Authors: Petit, S., Trichard, A., Biju-Duval, L., McLaughlin, Ó.B., Bohan, D.A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.03.2017; Elsevier BV; Elsevier
• Subjects: Abundance; Agricultural conservation; agricultural conservation practice; Agricultural ecosystems; Agricultural land; Agricultural practices; Agricultural production; Agriculture; Agrochemicals; Agroecology; Arable land; Beetles; Carabidae; Composition effects; Conservation; Conservation agriculture; Conservation practices; Crop yield; crops; Ecosystem services; Granivory; Grasslands; Invertebrates; Landscape; Landscape composition; landscapes; Life Sciences; natural enemies; Pest control; Pesticides; Pests; Predation; Seed predation; Weed regulation; Weeds; Weed regulation; Granivory; Landscape composition; Conservation agriculture; Agroecology; landscape composition; granivory; agroecology; weed regulation; conservation agriculture
• DOI: 10.1016/j.agee.2017.02.014
• ISSN: 0167-8809

•Weed predation is related to the abundance of granivorous and omnivorous carabids.•There are Interactive effects of local and landscape factors on seed predation.•Fields in CA since at least 4 years shelter more carabids and higher seed predation.•Carabids and seed predation in early CA fields depend on the surrounding landscape. Assuring future crop yields whilst minimising impacts of agriculture on the environment requires that we adopt managements that replace pesticides by fostering pest regulation. However, large-scale empirical evidence for in-field and landscape properties supporting natural enemy abundance and their regulation of pests, as an ecosystem service in agriculture, is scarce. Using data from 67 arable fields, we examined whether the duration of adoption of in-field conservation agricultural practices (CA) and the landscape context of those arable fields explains the levels of in-field weed seed predation. Our results indicate that landscape and CA, in interaction, do indeed explain a large proportion of the observed variation in weed seed predation in-field. CA practice maintains high in-field abundances of carabids, but only after a period of four years of adoption. Prior to this, carabid abundance was only high for fields in landscapes with high percentage cover of arable crops and/or permanent grassland. Our work shows that the effect of landscape composition is conditional on local in-field management and that both local and landscape scales can be used to enhance the abundance of carabid beetles and the amount of seed predation in arable fields.