Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Uberlândia, Minas Gerais 38405-302, Brazil.
Centro de Protección Vegetal y Biotecnología, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA), Moncada, Spain.
Proc Biol Sci. 2022 Aug 31;289(1981):20221316. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.1316. Epub 2022 Aug 17.
Environmental impacts of conventional agriculture have generated interest in sustainable agriculture. Biological pest control is a fundamental tool, and ants are key players providing ecological services, as well as some disservices. We have used a meta-analytical approach to investigate the contribution of ants to biological control, considering their effects on pest and natural enemy abundance, plant damage and crop yield. We also evaluated whether the effects of ants are modulated by traits of ants, pests and other natural enemies, as well as by field size, crop system and experiment duration. Overall (considering all meta-analyses), from 52 studies on 17 different crops, we found that ants decrease the abundance of non-honeydew-producing pests, decrease plant damage and increase crop yield (services). In addition, ants decrease the abundance of natural enemies, mainly the generalist ones, and increase honeydew-producing pest abundance (disservices). We show that the pest control and plant protection provided by ants are boosted in shaded crops compared to monocultures. Furthermore, ants increase crop yield in shaded crops, and this effect increases with time. Finally, we bring new insights such as the importance of shaded crops to ant services, providing a good tool for farmers and stakeholders considering sustainable farming practices.
传统农业的环境影响引发了人们对可持续农业的兴趣。生物防治是一种基本工具，而蚂蚁是提供生态服务以及一些不利影响的关键参与者。我们使用元分析方法来研究蚂蚁对生物防治的贡献，考虑它们对害虫和天敌丰度、植物损害和作物产量的影响。我们还评估了蚂蚁的影响是否受到蚂蚁、害虫和其他天敌特征的调节，以及田间大小、作物系统和实验持续时间的调节。总体而言（考虑所有元分析），我们从 17 种不同作物的 52 项研究中发现，蚂蚁减少了非蜜露产生害虫的丰度，减少了植物损害并增加了作物产量（服务）。此外，蚂蚁减少了天敌的丰度，主要是一般天敌的丰度，并增加了蜜露产生害虫的丰度（不利影响）。我们表明，与单一种植相比，遮荫作物中的蚂蚁控制和植物保护得到了增强。此外，蚂蚁增加了遮荫作物的作物产量，这种效应随着时间的推移而增加。最后，我们提供了一些新的见解，例如遮荫作物对蚂蚁服务的重要性，为考虑可持续农业实践的农民和利益相关者提供了一个很好的工具。
