What value do forests have for pest control in agroecosystems?

Adjacent non-crop habitat can positively influence arthropod pest control within agroecosystems. Forest cover has increased over the last half century in New England, and farms embedded in this forested matrix could benefit from ecosystem services such as pest control. We sampled vegetable farms, adjacent deciduous forests, and vegetative borders using pitfall traps and D-vac sampling to characterize arthropod abundance, community composition, and the level of arthropod movement between fields and forests. While several generalist predators were common across habitats, the arthropod communities showed a low degree of similarity. Arthropod diversity was the highest in the vegetative borders. The implications of our data for habitat enhancement of natural enemies will be discussed.