Integrating community population dynamics and tritrophic interactions for sustainable pest control: oilseed rape as a model system

This project will address urgent general scientific and applied issues regarding long-term sustainability of insect pest management in Swedish and global agriculture, using winter oilseed rape as a model system.

We will investigate potential ecosystem services and other benefits to plant protection that can be harnessed from multi-trophic interactions in diversified landscapes and field systems.

This includes interactions between major target herbivores and their natural enemies on the oilseed rape crop and how these are influenced by landscape and field diversification, and what the resulting effects on yield are.

We will characterize volatile signals driving interactions between plants and insects, as well as within and between different higher trophic levels in the community of the oilseed rape crop.

We will study how this affects decision making and host selection in herbivores and their natural enemies with potential consequences on damage and yield.

Our long-term capacity for acute pest control in agriculture is being eroded by phasing out of insecticides and increasing resistance levels due to overuse.

IPM methods in this project aim at decreasing reliance on insecticides, while also securing their sustainable long-term use through updated and refined management thresholds, which also take into consideration the effects of insecticides on the overall web of interactions in the oilseed rape crop.