Landscape-scale approaches for enhancing biological pest control in agricultural systems

• Published in: Environmental monitoring and assessment Vol. 193; no. Suppl 1; p. 75
• Main Authors: Petit, Sandrine, Deytieux, Violaine, Cordeau, Stéphane
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.04.2021; Springer Nature B.V; Springer
• Subjects: Agricultural management; Agricultural practices; Agricultural sciences; Agriculture; Agronomy; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Biodiversity; Crop rotation; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecological monitoring; Ecology; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Management; Environmental monitoring; Environmental science; Land management; Land use planning; Landscape design; Life Sciences; Monitoring/Environmental Analysis; Pest control; Pests; Sciences and technics of agriculture; Topical Collection on Managing Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity of Agricultural Systems; Pest control; Landscape monitoring network; Agroecological system experiment; Cropping system
• ISSN: 0167-6369; 1573-2959
• DOI: 10.1007/s10661-020-08812-2

Over the last decades, land management options have been investigated that aim at enhancing services to agriculture delivered by biodiversity and its associated biotic interactions. Such services can be promoted through land management strategies ranging from in-field single agricultural practices, long-term strategies compiling these agricultural practices at the crop rotation scale, to management strategies at the landscape scale. In this paper, we provide an overview of the land management options that can be implemented at multiple scales, with a specific focus on the provision of one service that is key in agriculture, i.e. pest control. We present existing knowledge and highlight current gaps and limitations in our understanding of pest control response to land management. Based on this analysis, we propose two promising and complementary research approaches that could help filling existing knowledge gaps and provide guidelines for designing landscapes for agroecological services: (1) landscape monitoring networks (LMN), based on long-term monitoring of ecological and managerial processes within sets of landscapes located in contrasted production contexts; (2) agroecological system experiments (ASE), which design and assess combinations of land management options at multiple embedded spatial scales.