Megan E. O'Rourke

TL;DR: A meta-analysis of 46 landscape-level studies found that natural enemies have a strong positive response to landscape complexity, and suggests that land management strategies to enhance natural pest control should differ depending on whether the dominant enemies are generalists or specialists.

TL;DR: Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for pollination; biological pest control; and final yields in the context of ongoing land-use change is partitioned.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify five hypotheses for when and why natural habitat can fail to support biological pest control, and illustrate each with case studies from the literature: (1) pest populations have no effective natural enemies in the region, (2) natural habitat is a greater source of pests than natural enemies, (3) crops provide more resources for natural enemies than does natural habitat, (4) natural habitats is insufficient in amount, proximity, composition, or configuration to provide large enough enemy populations needed for pest control and (5) agricultural practices counteract enemy establishment and bioc

TL;DR: Analysis of the largest pest-control database of its kind shows that surrounding noncrop habitat does not consistently improve pest management, meaning habitat conservation may bolster production in some systems and depress yields in others.

TL;DR: Using a global database from 89 crop systems, the relative importance of abundance and species richness for pollination, biological pest control and final yields in the context of on-going land-use change is partitioned.