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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Pest control services provided by naturally occurring species (the so-called biocontrol services) are
widely recognized to provide key incentives for biodiversity conservation. This is particularly relevant
for vertebrate-mediated biocontrol services as many vertebrate species are of conservation concern,
with most of their decline associated to landscape modification for agricultural purposes. Yet, we still
lack rigorous approaches evaluating landscape-level correlates of biocontrol potential by vertebrates
over broad spatial extents to better inform land-use and management decisions. We performed a
spatially-explicit interaction-based assessment of potential biocontrol services in Portugal, using 1853
pairwise trophic interactions between 78 flying vertebrate species (birds and bats) and 53 insect pests
associated to two widespread and economically valuable crops in the Euro-Mediterranean region,
olive groves (Olea europaea subsp. europaea) and vineyards (Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera). The study
area was framed using 1004 square cells, each 10 × 10 km in size. Potential biocontrol services were
determined at all those 10 × 10 km grid-cells in which each crop was present as the proportion of the
realized out of all potential pairwise interactions between vertebrates and pests. Landscape correlates
of biocontrol potential were also explored. Our work suggests that both birds and bats can effectively
provide biocontrol services in olive groves and vineyards as they prey many insect pest species
associated to both crops. Moreover, it demonstrates that these potential services are impacted by
landscape-scale features and that this impact is consistent when evaluated over broad spatial extents.
Thus, biocontrol potential by vertebrates significantly increases with increasing amount of natural
area, while decreases with increasing area devoted to target crops, particularly olive groves. Overall,
our study highlights the suitability of our interaction-based approach to perform spatially-explicit
assessments of potential biocontrol services by vertebrates at local spatial scales and suggest its
utility for integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services in conservation planning over broad spatial
extents
Description
Keywords
birds bats biocontrol landscape
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Scientific Reports (2021) 11:23662
Publisher
Nature