Temporal variability of aphid biological control in contrasting landscape contexts

Landscape complexity may provide ecosystem services to agriculture through the provision of natural enemies of agricultural pests. Strong positive effect of adjacent semi-natural habitats on natural enemies in croplands has been evidenced, but the resulting impact on biological control remains unclear. Taking into account the temporal dynamics of pest and natural enemies in agricultural landscapes provides better resolution to the studies and better understanding of the biological control service. In this study, the population dynamics of aphids and two groups of predators (coccinellid and carabid beetles) were examined. Insects were sampled in 20 wheat fields, surrounded by structurally simple and complex landscapes in Chilean central valley. Considering the whole sampling period, the diversity of aphids and natural enemies were similar in wheat crops surrounded by both types of landscapes, and the abundance of ladybirds was higher in crops in the complex landscapes. The dynamics of predators was more advanced in complex landscapes than in the simple ones, whereas the dynamics of aphids were similar in both types of landscape. Negative correlation between abundance of predators and aphid population growth rate in both landscape contexts were observed suggesting a control of the pest population by the predators. Different temporal patterns were observed in these correlations in the two landscape contexts, which suggests differences in the biological control related to the landscape composition. The present study shows that colonization of crops by natural enemies occurs sooner in structurally complex landscapes and suggests that this early colonization may facilitate an early and efficient control of aphid populations, nevertheless the biological control efficiency seems to be higher in structurally simple landscapes later in the season. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.