Conservation biological control at the landscape level: measuring and modelling

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Abstract: The incorporation of landscape management into Conservation Biological Control(CBC) strategies is a priority area of research but is hindered by a lack of harmonisation of themeans to describe and measure the effectiveness of CBC, the organisms under focus and thelandscape. This paper provides a set of recommendations that represents the consensus amongstexperts of the ENDURE network. The most important data values that were identified were: pestpopulation level; natural enemy population or % parasitism/predation; crop damage; estimate ofmobility of study organisms (dispersal function) and non-explicit spatial measurements such asthe proportion of the landscape offering resources and the connectivity between resource patches.For all these measurements, careful consideration should be given to the appropriate spatial andtemporal scale of assessment. For analysis, we advocate an iterative use of modeling tools,particularly individual-based models, and statistical approaches: the former to understandmechanisms underlying the population dynamics of pests and their natural enemies in landscapesand the latter to characterize the observed patterns of these populations in a given landscape.

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