Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development, University of Évora, Casa Cordovil, 2nd Floor, R. Dom Augusto Eduardo Nunes 7, 7000-651, Évora, Portugal.
CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Campus de Vairão, Universidade do Porto, 4485-601, Vairão, Portugal.
Sci Rep. 2021 Dec 8;11(1):23662. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-02768-0.
Pest control services provided by naturally occurring species (the so-called biocontrol services) are widely recognized to provide key incentives for biodiversity conservation. This is particularly relevant for vertebrate-mediated biocontrol services as many vertebrate species are of conservation concern, with most of their decline associated to landscape modification for agricultural purposes. Yet, we still lack rigorous approaches evaluating landscape-level correlates of biocontrol potential by vertebrates over broad spatial extents to better inform land-use and management decisions. We performed a spatially-explicit interaction-based assessment of potential biocontrol services in Portugal, using 1853 pairwise trophic interactions between 78 flying vertebrate species (birds and bats) and 53 insect pests associated to two widespread and economically valuable crops in the Euro-Mediterranean region, olive groves (Olea europaea subsp. europaea) and vineyards (Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera). The study area was framed using 1004 square cells, each 10 × 10 km in size. Potential biocontrol services were determined at all those 10 × 10 km grid-cells in which each crop was present as the proportion of the realized out of all potential pairwise interactions between vertebrates and pests. Landscape correlates of biocontrol potential were also explored. Our work suggests that both birds and bats can effectively provide biocontrol services in olive groves and vineyards as they prey many insect pest species associated to both crops. Moreover, it demonstrates that these potential services are impacted by landscape-scale features and that this impact is consistent when evaluated over broad spatial extents. Thus, biocontrol potential by vertebrates significantly increases with increasing amount of natural area, while decreases with increasing area devoted to target crops, particularly olive groves. Overall, our study highlights the suitability of our interaction-based approach to perform spatially-explicit assessments of potential biocontrol services by vertebrates at local spatial scales and suggest its utility for integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services in conservation planning over broad spatial extents.
由自然发生的物种（所谓的生物防治服务）提供的害虫防治服务被广泛认为是生物多样性保护的关键激励因素。这对于脊椎动物介导的生物防治服务尤其相关，因为许多脊椎动物物种受到保护关注，它们的大部分衰退与为农业目的而进行的景观改造有关。然而，我们仍然缺乏严格的方法来评估在广泛的空间范围内，脊椎动物的生物防治潜力与景观水平的相关性，以更好地为土地利用和管理决策提供信息。我们使用 1853 对 78 种飞行脊椎动物（鸟类和蝙蝠）与 53 种与在欧洲-地中海地区广泛种植的两种经济价值较高的作物（橄榄树（Olea europaea subsp. europaea）和葡萄园（Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera）相关的昆虫害虫之间的成对营养相互作用，对葡萄牙的潜在生物防治服务进行了基于空间显式相互作用的评估。研究区域使用 1004 个正方形单元格框定，每个单元格大小为 10×10 公里。在每个作物存在的所有 10×10 公里网格单元中，确定了潜在的生物防治服务，其为脊椎动物与害虫之间所有潜在的成对相互作用中实现的比例。还探索了生物防治潜力的景观相关性。我们的工作表明，鸟类和蝙蝠都可以有效地为橄榄树和葡萄园提供生物防治服务，因为它们捕食与这两种作物相关的许多昆虫害虫。此外，它表明这些潜在的服务受到景观尺度特征的影响，并且在广泛的空间范围内进行评估时，这种影响是一致的。因此，脊椎动物的生物防治潜力随着自然区域的增加而显著增加，而随着目标作物（特别是橄榄树）面积的增加而减少。总体而言，我们的研究强调了我们基于相互作用的方法在当地空间尺度上对脊椎动物潜在生物防治服务进行空间显式评估的适宜性，并表明其在广泛的空间范围内将生物多样性和生态系统服务纳入保护规划中的实用性。
