Landscape scale and local crop protection intensity affect the abundance of the codling moth and its predation and parasitism in apple orchards

Abstract: One important feature that may explain variation in pest abundance and pest biocontrol in crops is the land-use intensity in the landscapes. We report results from three studies in which we tried to address this question by assessing whether amount of semi-natural habitat and/or pesticide use at both local and landscape scales affected the abundance of codling moth, its parasitism and predation of sentinel eggs in commercial apple orchards of south-eastern France. Our results indicate that in this landscape there is indeed a significant effect of the pesticide use intensity at both the local and the landscape scales on these variables.