Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jan 1;13(1):48.
doi: 10.3390/insects13010048.

Effect of Organic Farming and Agricultural Abandonment on Beneficial Arthropod Communities Associated with Olive Groves in Western Spain: Implications for Bactrocera oleae Management

Víctor de Paz  1 , Estefanía Tobajas  1 , Natalia Rosas-Ramos  1 , José Tormos  1 , Josep Daniel Asís  1 , Laura Baños-Picón  1
Affiliations

Effect of Organic Farming and Agricultural Abandonment on Beneficial Arthropod Communities Associated with Olive Groves in Western Spain: Implications for Bactrocera oleae Management

Víctor de Paz et al. Insects. .

Abstract

Agricultural abandonment and intensification are among the main land-use changes in Europe. Along with these processes, different proposals have been developed to counteract the negative effects derived from agricultural intensification, including organic management. In this context, we aimed to determine how organic management and farmland abandonment affect Bactrocera oleae and its main groups of natural enemies: hymenopteran parasitoids, spiders, ants, carabids, and staphylinids. Between May and October 2018, four samplings were carried out in nine olive groves (three under organic management, three under traditional management, and three abandoned) in a rural area on the border between Spain and Portugal (Salamanca, Western Spain). Our results suggested differences between the natural enemy community composition of abandoned and organic groves, with slightly higher levels of richness and abundance in abandoned groves. We found no differences between organic and traditional groves. The managed olive groves sustained a different natural enemy community but were similarly rich and diverse compared with the more complex abandoned groves, with the latter not acting as a reservoir of B. oleae in our study area. Both systems may provide complementary habitats; however, further abandonment could cause a reduction in heterogeneity at the landscape scale and, consequently, a biodiversity loss.

Keywords: Bactrocera oleae; abandonment; organic farming; parasitoids; spiders; staphylinids; traditional olive groves.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Location of the study area in Salamanca (Western Spain) and the location of the nine olive groves sampled within the study area. Traditional olive groves: yellow squares, organic groves: red triangles, and abandoned groves: blue circles.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Sampling design. Black circles: pitfall traps; yellow rectangles: sticky traps; empty squares: 2 m × 2 m vacuuming quadrants. Dashed arrows represent the minimum distance between traps or the grove’s edge.
Figure 3
Figure 3
MDS of the natural enemy (A), spider (B), and parasitoid (C) communities sampled (Bray–Curtis index, square-root transformed abundances). Triangles: organic groves; circles: abandoned groves; squares: traditional groves.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Factorial correspondence analysis was performed on the abundance of the most relevant families of natural enemies on each type of system (organic and abandoned). Families in bold with black drawings were those significantly affected by the variable system, whereas underlined families with grey drawings were marginally affected by this variable, according to the results obtained from the linear models fitted on the abundances of the most dominant families. Red dot: principal coordinate value for each family in the first axis of the FCA; blue dot: principal coordinate value for each farming system in the first axis of the FCA. o Significant association with the organic groves in the correspondence analysis; a significant association with the abandoned groves in the correspondence analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Tilman D., Cassman K.G., Matson P.A., Naylor R., Polasky S. Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices. Nature. 2002;418:671–677. doi: 10.1038/nature01014. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bongaarts J. IPBES Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Popul. Dev. Rev. 2019;45:680–681.
    1. Raven P.H., Wagner D.L. Agricultural intensification and climate change are rapidly decreasing insect biodiversity. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 2021;118:1–6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2002548117. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lichtenberg E.M., Kennedy C.M., Kremen C., Batáry P., Berendse F., Bommarco R., Bosque-Pérez N.A., Carvalheiro L.G., Snyder W.E., Williams N.M., et al. A global synthesis of the effects of diversified farming systems on arthropod diversity within fields and across agricultural landscapes. Glob. Chang. Biol. 2017;23:4946–4957. doi: 10.1111/gcb.13714. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Dainese M., Martin E.A., Aizen M.A., Albrecht M., Bartomeus I., Bommarco R., Carvalheiro L.G., Chaplin-Kramer R., Gagic V., Garibaldi L.A., et al. A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production. Sci. Adv. 2019;5:eaax0121. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aax0121. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources