Plant diversification promotes biocontrol services in peach orchards by shaping the ecological niches of insect herbivores and their natural enemies

TY - JOUR

T1 - Plant diversification promotes biocontrol services in peach orchards by shaping the ecological niches of insect herbivores and their natural enemies

AU - Wan, Nian Feng

AU - Ji, Xiang Yun

AU - Deng, Jian Yu

AU - Kiær, Lars Pødenphant

AU - Cai, You Ming

AU - Jiang, Jie Xian

PY - 2019/4

Y1 - 2019/4

N2 - Ecological niche indicators have been scarcely adopted to assess the biological control of insect herbivores by their natural enemies. We hypothesize that plant diversification promotes the biocontrol services by narrowing the niches of herbivores and broadening the niches of natural enemies. In a large-scale experiment, we found that the abundance of natural enemies was increased by 38.1%, and the abundance of insect herbivores was decreased by 16.9% in peach orchards with plant diversification (treatment) compared to ones with monoculture (control). Stratified sampling indicated that the horizontal, vertical, temporal and three-dimensional niches of natural enemies were generally broader while these niches of herbivores were narrower. Additionally, diverse plants give rise to an increase in the temporal synchrony and spatial similarity of the herbivores and natural enemies in peach orchards. Our study reveals that plant diversification promotes the biocontrol services by shaping the niche of herbivores and natural enemies, and provides a new assessment method to understand the biodiversity-niche-ecosystem management interactions.

AB - Ecological niche indicators have been scarcely adopted to assess the biological control of insect herbivores by their natural enemies. We hypothesize that plant diversification promotes the biocontrol services by narrowing the niches of herbivores and broadening the niches of natural enemies. In a large-scale experiment, we found that the abundance of natural enemies was increased by 38.1%, and the abundance of insect herbivores was decreased by 16.9% in peach orchards with plant diversification (treatment) compared to ones with monoculture (control). Stratified sampling indicated that the horizontal, vertical, temporal and three-dimensional niches of natural enemies were generally broader while these niches of herbivores were narrower. Additionally, diverse plants give rise to an increase in the temporal synchrony and spatial similarity of the herbivores and natural enemies in peach orchards. Our study reveals that plant diversification promotes the biocontrol services by shaping the niche of herbivores and natural enemies, and provides a new assessment method to understand the biodiversity-niche-ecosystem management interactions.

KW - Ecological indicator

KW - Ecological niche

KW - Insect herbivore

KW - Natural enemy

KW - Orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis

KW - Peach orchards

KW - Pest management

U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.11.047

DO - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.11.047

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85039745386

SN - 1470-160X

VL - 99

SP - 387

EP - 392

JO - Ecological Indicators

JF - Ecological Indicators

ER -