As we learn of the problems associated with chemical control of insect pests in agricultural fields, there has been a renewed interest in biological control. Historically, classical biological control has focused on bringing exotic predators to regions affected by invasive pests; endemic or established. More recently, though, there has been an increasing interest in studying approaches to increase the abundance of predators to control pests. This has been referred to as Conservation Biological Control. We were interested in possible effects different agricultural field edges had on predatory arthropods, specifically Orius insidiosus, Nabis spp., and species in the family Coccinelidae. We hypothesized that we would find greater predator abundance in field edges that had a woody plant component. Twenty field edges, consisting of edges of ten soybean and ten cornfields, located in Wood County, Ohio were sampled using sweep nets approximately every two weeks from July through early September of 2002. Half of the margins were categorized as complex, i.e., consisted mainly of woody plants. The other half were categorized as simple, i.e., they lacked a woody component and were populated by herbaceous species. Plant composition varied in the simple edges from tall grass and flowers to mown grass. The insects from each sample were sorted and identified to species or morpho-species. At this point in our research our results suggest that Orius insidiosus is more common in herbaceous edges. This research provides guidelines for improving pest control by predators by modifying field edges to better suit those predators.
Species 1: Heteroptera Anthocoridae Orius insidiosus (minute pirate bug)
Species 2: Heteroptera Nabidae Nabis (damsel bug)
Species 3: Coleoptera Coccinellidae (lady beetle)
Keywords: edge effects
Back to Student Competition Display Presentations, Section Ca. Biological Control
Back to Student Competition Posters
Back to The 2003 ESA Annual Meeting and Exhibition