Overwintering of pollen beetles and their predators in oilseed rape and semi-natural habitats

摘要

Semi-natural habitats (SNH) maintain high levels of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning within agroeco-systems. While management recommendations for SNH to promote biodiversity and optimize natural pest control, have mostly focused on improving food resources for predators, overwintering conditions have hitherto received less attention. The success of conservation biological control is often hampered by a lack of knowledge on how different habitats and their associated traits drive the overwintering of both, crop pests and their natural enemies. Moreover, there are concerns that SNH may act as reservoirs for crop pests.