Forest bolsters bird abundance, pest control and coffee yield.
TL;DR: The value native predators provide to farmers by consuming coffee's most damaging insect pest, the coffee berry borer beetle, is quantified to demonstrate a win-win for biodiversity and coffee farmers.
Abstract: Efforts to maximise crop yields are fuelling agricultural intensification, exacerbating the biodiversity crisis. Low-intensity agricultural practices, however, may not sacrifice yields if they support biodiversity-driven ecosystem services. We quantified the value native predators provide to farmers by consuming coffee's most damaging insect pest, the coffee berry borer beetle (Hypothenemus hampei). Our experiments in Costa Rica showed birds reduced infestation by ~ 50%, bats played a marginal role, and farmland forest cover increased pest removal. We identified borer-consuming bird species by assaying faeces for borer DNA and found higher borer-predator abundances on more forested plantations. Our coarse estimate is that forest patches doubled pest control over 230 km2 by providing habitat for ~ 55 000 borer-consuming birds. These pest-control services prevented US$75-US$310 ha-year(-1) in damage, a benefit per plantation on par with the average annual income of a Costa Rican citizen. Retaining forest and accounting for pest control demonstrates a win-win for biodiversity and coffee farmers.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: Defaunation is both a pervasive component of the planet’s sixth mass extinction and also a major driver of global ecological change.
Abstract: We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species and population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundance. Particularly, human impacts on animal biodiversity are an under-recognized form of global environmental change. Among terrestrial vertebrates, 322 species have become extinct since 1500, and populations of the remaining species show 25% average decline in abundance. Invertebrate patterns are equally dire: 67% of monitored populations show 45% mean abundance decline. Such animal declines will cascade onto ecosystem functioning and human well-being. Much remains unknown about this “Anthropocene defaunation”; these knowledge gaps hinder our capacity to predict and limit defaunation impacts. Clearly, however, defaunation is both a pervasive component of the planet’s sixth mass extinction and also a major driver of global ecological change.
2,697 citations
TL;DR: Biodiversity-based techniques can be used to manage most human-modified lands as “working landscapes” and ensure that the production of food, fiber, fuel, and timber can be sustained over the long run and be more resilient to extreme events.
Abstract: How can we manage farmlands, forests, and rangelands to respond to the triple challenge of the Anthropocene-biodiversity loss, climate change, and unsustainable land use? When managed by using biodiversity-based techniques such as agroforestry, silvopasture, diversified farming, and ecosystem-based forest management, these socioeconomic systems can help maintain biodiversity and provide habitat connectivity, thereby complementing protected areas and providing greater resilience to climate change. Simultaneously, the use of these management techniques can improve yields and profitability more sustainably, enhancing livelihoods and food security. This approach to "working lands conservation" can create landscapes that work for nature and people. However, many socioeconomic challenges impede the uptake of biodiversity-based land management practices. Although improving voluntary incentives, market instruments, environmental regulations, and governance is essential to support working lands conservation, it is community action, social movements, and broad coalitions among citizens, businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies that have the power to transform how we manage land and protect the environment.
575 citations
Cites background from "Forest bolsters bird abundance, pes..."
...Reduced economic losses due to pest control frombirds are similar inmagnitude to average per capita income in the region and are strongly related to forest cover (50)....
[...]
...For example, evidence suggests that an economically devastating invasive pest, the coffee berry borer, is reduced by the integration of forest elements within coffee landscapes, which both limits the borer’s ability to colonize new coffee fields (49) and promotes bird species that prey on the borer (50)....
[...]
University of Göttingen1, University of British Columbia2, Stanford University3, CGIAR4, University of Wisconsin-Madison5, University of Maryland, College Park6, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences7, University of California, Berkeley8, University of Würzburg9, Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza10, National Ecological Observatory Network11, Virginia Tech12, Cornell University13, University of California, Davis14, Institut national de la recherche agronomique15, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation16, Lincoln University (New Zealand)17, International Food Policy Research Institute18
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
400 citations
Cites background from "Forest bolsters bird abundance, pes..."
...First, keeping natural habitat in agricultural landscapes promotes conservation of wild biodiversity and, second, natural habitat provides important ecosystem services including pest control (Landis et al., 2000; Bianchi et al., 2006; Karp et al., 2013; Shackelford et al., 2013;Milligan et al., 2016), but also soil conservation (Mäder et al....
[...]
...…biodiversity and, second, natural habitat provides important ecosystem services including pest control (Landis et al., 2000; Bianchi et al., 2006; Karp et al., 2013; Shackelford et al., 2013;Milligan et al., 2016), but also soil conservation (Mäder et al., 2002), nutrient retention…...
[...]
TL;DR: It is suggested that trait values should be measured across environmental conditions and agricultural management regimes to predict how ecosystem services vary with farm practices and environment and to develop management strategies that can be easily implemented by farmers to manage agriculture to provide multiple ecosystem services.
Abstract: Functional trait research has led to greater understanding of the impacts of biodiversity in ecosystems. Yet, functional trait approaches have not been widely applied to agroecosystems and understanding of the importance of agrobiodiversity remains limited to a few ecosystem processes and services. To improve this understanding, we argue here for a functional trait approach to agroecology that adopts recent advances in trait research for multitrophic and spatially heterogeneous ecosystems. We suggest that trait values should be measured across environmental conditions and agricultural management regimes to predict how ecosystem services vary with farm practices and environment. This knowledge should be used to develop management strategies that can be easily implemented by farmers to manage agriculture to provide multiple ecosystem services.
288 citations
TL;DR: A review of the evidence for replacing external inputs with ecosystem services shows that scientists tend to focus on processes rather than outcomes, and express benefits at spatio-temporal scales that are not always relevant to farmers, resulting in mismatches in perceived benefits of ecological intensification between scientists and farmers, which hinders its uptake.
Abstract: There is worldwide concern about the environmental costs of conventional intensification of agriculture. Growing evidence suggests that ecological intensification of mainstream farming can safeguard food production, with accompanying environmental benefits; however, the approach is rarely adopted by farmers. Our review of the evidence for replacing external inputs with ecosystem services shows that scientists tend to focus on processes (e.g., pollination) rather than outcomes (e.g., profits), and express benefits at spatio-temporal scales that are not always relevant to farmers. This results in mismatches in perceived benefits of ecological intensification between scientists and farmers, which hinders its uptake. We provide recommendations for overcoming these mismatches and highlight important additional factors driving uptake of nature-based management practices, such as social acceptability of farming.
281 citations
References
More filters
Book•
11 Apr 2011
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply additive mixed modelling on phyoplankton time series data and show that the additive model can be used to estimate the age distribution of small cetaceans.
Abstract: Limitations of linear regression applied on ecological data. - Things are not always linear additive modelling. - Dealing with hetergeneity. - Mixed modelling for nested data. - Violation of independence - temporal data. - Violation of independence spatial data. - Generalised linear modelling and generalised additive modelling. - Generalised estimation equations. - GLMM and GAMM. - Estimating trends for Antarctic birds in relation to climate change. - Large-scale impacts of land-use change in a Scottish farming catchment. - Negative binomial GAM and GAMM to analyse amphibian road killings. - Additive mixed modelling applied on deep-sea plagic bioluminescent organisms. - Additive mixed modelling applied on phyoplankton time series data. - Mixed modelling applied on American Fouldbrood affecting honey bees larvae. - Three-way nested data for age determination techniques applied to small cetaceans. - GLMM applied on the spatial distribution of koalas in a fragmented landscape. - GEE and GLMM applied on binomial Badger activity data.
12,477 citations
"Forest bolsters bird abundance, pes..." refers methods in this paper
...We tested the effect of bird and bat exclusion on borer infestation with generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs) (Zuur et al. 2009)....
[...]
...Significance was tested with backwards model selection, utilising Aikaike Information Criteria and log-likelihood tests (Zuur et al. 2009)....
[...]
TL;DR: Per capita demand for crops, when measured as caloric or protein content of all crops combined, has been a similarly increasing function of per capita real income since 1960 and forecasts a 100–110% increase in global crop demand from 2005 to 2050.
Abstract: Global food demand is increasing rapidly, as are the environmental impacts of agricultural expansion. Here, we project global demand for crop production in 2050 and evaluate the environmental impacts of alternative ways that this demand might be met. We find that per capita demand for crops, when measured as caloric or protein content of all crops combined, has been a similarly increasing function of per capita real income since 1960. This relationship forecasts a 100–110% increase in global crop demand from 2005 to 2050. Quantitative assessments show that the environmental impacts of meeting this demand depend on how global agriculture expands. If current trends of greater agricultural intensification in richer nations and greater land clearing (extensification) in poorer nations were to continue, ∼1 billion ha of land would be cleared globally by 2050, with CO2-C equivalent greenhouse gas emissions reaching ∼3 Gt y−1 and N use ∼250 Mt y−1 by then. In contrast, if 2050 crop demand was met by moderate intensification focused on existing croplands of underyielding nations, adaptation and transfer of high-yielding technologies to these croplands, and global technological improvements, our analyses forecast land clearing of only ∼0.2 billion ha, greenhouse gas emissions of ∼1 Gt y−1, and global N use of ∼225 Mt y−1. Efficient management practices could substantially lower nitrogen use. Attainment of high yields on existing croplands of underyielding nations is of great importance if global crop demand is to be met with minimal environmental impacts.
5,303 citations
TL;DR: The rapidly expanding literature on habitat management is reviewed with attention to practices for favoring predators and parasitoids, implementation of habitat management, and the contributions of modeling and ecological theory to this developing area of conservation biological control.
Abstract: ▪ Abstract Many agroecosystems are unfavorable environments for natural enemies due to high levels of disturbance. Habitat management, a form of conservation biological control, is an ecologically based approach aimed at favoring natural enemies and enhancing biological control in agricultural systems. The goal of habitat management is to create a suitable ecological infrastructure within the agricultural landscape to provide resources such as food for adult natural enemies, alternative prey or hosts, and shelter from adverse conditions. These resources must be integrated into the landscape in a way that is spatially and temporally favorable to natural enemies and practical for producers to implement. The rapidly expanding literature on habitat management is reviewed with attention to practices for favoring predators and parasitoids, implementation of habitat management, and the contributions of modeling and ecological theory to this developing area of conservation biological control. The potential to int...
2,705 citations
"Forest bolsters bird abundance, pes..." refers background in this paper
...…of crop pests are particularly sensitive to habitat loss because natural habitat provides predators with alternative prey, refuges during disturbances, and sites for breeding, hibernation and roosting (Landis et al. 2000; Bianchi et al. 2006; Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2011; Jirinec et al. 2011)....
[...]
TL;DR: It is concluded that diversified landscapes hold most potential for the conservation of biodiversity and sustaining the pest control function and similar contributions of these landscape factors suggest that all are equally important in enhancing natural enemy populations.
Abstract: Agricultural intensification has resulted in a simplification of agricultural landscapes by the expansion of agricultural land, enlargement of field size and removal of non-crop habitat. These changes are considered to be an important cause of the rapid decline in farmland biodiversity, with the remaining biodiversity concentrated in field edges and non-crop habitats. The simplification of landscape composition and the decline of biodiversity may affect the functioning of natural pest control because non-crop habitats provide requisites for a broad spectrum of natural enemies, and the exchange of natural enemies between crop and non-crop habitats is likely to be diminished in landscapes dominated by arable cropland. In this review, we test the hypothesis that natural pest control is enhanced in complex patchy landscapes with a high proportion of non-crop habitats as compared to simple large-scale landscapes with little associated non-crop habitat. In 74% and 45% of the studies reviewed, respectively, natural enemy populations were higher and pest pressure lower in complex landscapes versus simple landscapes. Landscape-driven pest suppression may result in lower crop injury, although this has rarely been documented. Enhanced natural enemy activity was associated with herbaceous habitats in 80% of the cases (e.g. fallows, field margins), and somewhat less often with wooded habitats (71%) and landscape patchiness (70%). The similar contributions of these landscape factors suggest that all are equally important in enhancing natural enemy populations. We conclude that diversified landscapes hold most potential for the conservation of biodiversity and sustaining the pest control function.
1,659 citations
"Forest bolsters bird abundance, pes..." refers background in this paper
...Complex predator–prey dynamics and research biases towards temperate systems make quantifying changes in pest control difficult (Bianchi et al. 2006; Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2011)....
[...]
...Globally, agricultural intensification is rapidly replacing ribbons and clusters of natural habitat elements on farmland with monocultures that may appear as buffets for pests and wastelands for their predators (Bianchi et al. 2006; Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2011)....
[...]
...…of crop pests are particularly sensitive to habitat loss because natural habitat provides predators with alternative prey, refuges during disturbances, and sites for breeding, hibernation and roosting (Landis et al. 2000; Bianchi et al. 2006; Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2011; Jirinec et al. 2011)....
[...]
...For example, natural habitat may boost both predators and pests, making predator abundance alone a poor proxy for pest control (Bianchi et al. 2006; Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2011)....
[...]
TL;DR: The majority of parks are successful at stopping land clearing, and to a lesser degree effective at mitigating logging, hunting, fire, and grazing, suggesting that even modest increases in funding would directly increase the ability of parks to protect tropical biodiversity.
Abstract: We assessed the impacts of anthropogenic threats on 93 protected areas in 22 tropical countries to test the hypothesis that parks are an effective means to protect tropical biodiversity. We found that the majority of parks are successful at stopping land clearing, and to a lesser degree effective at mitigating logging, hunting, fire, and grazing. Park effectiveness correlates with basic management activities such as enforcement, boundary demarcation, and direct compensation to local communities, suggesting that even modest increases in funding would directly increase the ability of parks to protect tropical biodiversity.
1,531 citations
"Forest bolsters bird abundance, pes..." refers background in this paper
...Protected areas are and will continue to be important for safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystem services and human wellbeing (Bruner et al. 2001; Chan et al. 2006; Andam et al. 2010; Laurance et al. 2012)....
[...]