Search results for "Predation"
showing 10 items of 589 documents
La lutte biologique contre l'ambroisie à feuilles d'armoise illustrée par l'exemple d'Ophraella communa: quels intérêts et quelles limites ?
2016
National audience; Common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) was introduced in France over 150 years ago and its spreading across France now seems inexorable. The specific biology of this summer annual creates new problems for the managers of the various habitats where the plant can be found. The reduced possibility, or even the impossibility, to use traditional control means in certain environment conditions brings managers to consider biological control as one of the few possible means for slowing down the spread, or even pushing back the distribution area, of this invasive and allergenic plant. With Ophraella communa as an example, a reflection is presented on the benefit-risk balance of …
Disentangling local agronomic practices from agricultural landscape effects on pest biological control
2019
International audience; The biological control of crop pests is a valuable service provided by various beneficial organisms that are naturally present in agricultural landscapes. Semi-natural habitats has long been recognized as essential to preserve beneficial insects, but proof of their efficiency to enhance biological control of pests remains non conclusive. Here, we examined the variability of landscape effect on biological pest control and the way local agronomic practices may modulate it. Biological pest control was monitored in 80 commercial fields (arable crops and orchards) during three consecutive years in four contrasting French agricultural landscapes distributed along a double …
Effets de la variabilité inter-individuelles et des interactions intra-guildes sur les stratégies d'approvisionnement de carabes consommateurs de gra…
2017
Making a choice requires, implicitly, an investment of time in one behaviour at the expense of an investment in another. Being choosy would increase the risk of losing many food item opportunities to competitors, and is directly in conflict with other essential tasks such as predator avoidance. Individuals are thus expected to adjust their level of choosiness in response to the competition and predation context. The available behavioural ecological theory and the empirical ecology of carabids would suggest that competition and predation interference induces changes in the foraging behaviour of carabid individuals. Carabids typically operate within communities in which competition and predat…
Toward a better prediction of in-field weed regulation by carabid beetles in European arable landscapes
2019
International audience; Arable agriculture is still highly reliant on herbicides to manage weeds. As part of the necessary shift towards a reduction in pesticide use, the regulatory effect of seed-eating carabid beetles on weeds has received increasing attention in agroecological research. While strong evidence points to carabids exerting a regulatory effect on certain weed species, it is difficult to predict whether a particular assemblage of carabid species will drive the function of weed seed predation in field conditions. There are also uncertainties about which key local and landscape-scale factors affect the function of weed seed predation. In this paper, we report on specific researc…
Can obligatory omnivore carabids be useful for the biocontrol of weeds?
2017
National audience; Many thousands of carabid individuals exist in farm fields, in communities of carnivore and opportunistic (e.g. granivores) and obligate omnivore guilds. As carabids can eat a substantial amount of weed seeds they are considered as credible biocontrol agents for the regulation of weeds in arable fields. Some studies have suggested that “granivores” are more important biocontrol agents than obligate omnivorous species. Yet, in some instances, obligate omnivores are very abundant and appear to drive the predation of weeds leading some authors to question whether specialist natural enemies are better. Moreover, niche complementarity, facilitation and interference (i.e. intra…
Species-specific prey choice of carabid beetles in European cereal fields
2017
National audience; Trophic interactions between species in agroecosystems provide key regulation ecosystem services and therefore also determine the dynamics, robustness and resilience of service provision. To achieve international goals of reducing application of pesticides without compromising key provisioning ecosystem services such as crop yield, recent research attaches importance to the biological control potential of carabid beetles. However, apart from feeding on pest species and weed seeds, carabids also consume non-pest prey (alternative prey) such as collembolans and earthworms, which can play a contradictory role in the efficacy of pest and weed control. Most carabids are descri…
Cropping systems for driving biological regulation of weeds. A simulation study of seed predation by carabids
2018
International audience; Weed seed predation by carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) may contribute to weed control in crop fields but to date, evidence of weed regulation by carabids is scarce. Predation rates are driven by several factors (crop management techniques, habitat quality, pedoclimate, and carabids’ seasonal dynamics). Models are needed to evaluate the impact of weed seed predation on multi-annual weed dynamics, and thus on crop production and weed biodiversity. We developed a predation model which was added to an existing weed dynamics model (FlorSys, Colbach et al., 2014). The model was built from available literature and experimental data. It simulates the effects on daily…
Effects of seed and carabid densities on the weed seed predation service
2017
National audience; Farming relies heavily on pesticides in order to maintain/increase crop production, yet, awareness of the adverse effects of pesticides on the environment and on biodiversity has triggered the search for alternative, non-chemical, pest management strategies. In arable systems, weeds remain one of the most challenging management issue. Recent research suggest that the depletion of weed seeds by naturally occurring seed consumers could impact the dynamics of problematic weeds and in temperate systems, carabid beetles are the main invertebrate consumers of weed seeds. However, predicting weed seed depletion rates in field conditions remains difficult, as carabid trophic resp…
Quantification of the contribution of weed seed predators to crop yield
2023
30 book of abstracts; International audience
The role of Marine Protected Areas in influencing the invasion success of the alien crab Percnon gibbesi
2018
The biotic resistance hypothesis states that pristine communities, with high species richness and functional diversity, are less prone to biological invasions than species-poor areas either this is natural or it is a result of human activities. Complex communities with high levels of biodiversity, such as those hosted by Marine Protected Areas, should offer fewer niche opportunities (e.g. resources and space) to invasive species thereby reducing both their establishment possibilities and success (i.e. settlement and/or expansion). The present study aimed to evaluate the capacity of marine protected communities to provide a buffer against the establishment of one of the most invasive species…