Abstract
There is a general lack of actionable knowledge on the relationship between different habitats and their plant communities in agricultural landscapes, the insect communities living in these, and the provision of ecosystem services (ESS) to agriculture at landscape scale. Such knowledge is critical for designing landscapes that exploit the potential of biodiversity (species and ecosystem level) to enhance the provision of the ecosystem services of biological control and pollination in agriculture. Here we propose to analyse existing databases on habitat associations of arthropods and literature sources on dispersal of different functional groups of insects to build process-based predictive models of the spatial distribution of ecosystem services in diversified landscapes. In particular, we want to predict the consequences of species composition in source habitats, area of source habitats, and distance between sources and targets on the outcome of pest-natural enemy interactions, and the level of pollination. Predictions of ESS will be complemented with an analysis of costs and economic benefits. Moreover, we will assess whether there could be critical levels (critical transitions) in the amount of ESS provided, above which a stable and sustainable equilibrium is reached, and below which a different, unsustainable equilibrium is attained. The results of the research will enable stakeholders to assess the potential role of a diversified and multifunctional landscape for promoting ESS in agriculture. Insight into the economic benefit of landscape management for ESS will clarify the need for providing additional economic incentives to farmers to promote landscape wide biodiversity and conservation of habitats and species.
Netherlands