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Insects
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Dynamics of Pests and Their Natural Enemies in a Mediterranean...
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Dynamics of Pests and Their Natural Enemies in a Mediterranean Climate Change Scenario

A special issue of Insects (ISSN 2075-4450). This special issue belongs to the section "Insect Ecology, Diversity and Conservation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 7863

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. José Alberto Pereira

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centro de Investigação de Montanha (CIMO), ESA, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Bragança, Portugal
Interests: olive oil; table olives and olive by-products: quality control, chemical characterization and sensory analysis; agriculture/plant protection/agricultural entomology; influence of agronomic practices on the composition and quality of plant origin products
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jacinto Benhadi-Marín

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centro de Investigação de Montanha (CIMO), ESA, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Bragança, Portugal
Interests: biological control; natural enemies; agroecosystems; arachnology; insects; modeling; data analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The increasing demand for food production results in an overwhelmed crop production worldwide. The use of agrochemicals to control pests and enhance production threatens the health of agroecosystems whereas intensive management results in high environmental degradation. In recent decades, climate change has joined the list of human-derived environmental processes with potentially dramatic consequences. Climate warming may result in ecological imbalances such as fast changes in species distributions. For example, new areas of favorable conditions for pests may arise, compromising crop production.

Environmentally friendly practices in the context of agriculture have been promoted encompassing different approaches. Such tools aim at establishing and maintaining the natural functioning of agroecosystems. The use of natural enemies is an efficient way to enhance the biological control of pests. However, climate change may also disrupt the trophic cascade in crops affecting the lifecycle, behavior, fitness, and distribution of biological agents, thus reducing their efficiency as natural enemies and consequently reducing pest limitation.

The Mediterranean region represents a key crop production area in the world and includes biodiversity hotspots and ancient agroecosystems with relevant economic and social involvement of society. The present Special Issue welcomes original research and reviews regarding field and laboratory assays focused on any representative crop throughout the Mediterranean region with special emphasis on the effects of climate change. Research under this topic such as the effects of abiotic conditions on the lifecycle of pests and natural enemies, trophic interactions and behavior, potential changes in key species distributions, predictive modeling from an economic and ecological point of view, and spatial patterns on species spread at local and broader geographical range derived from climate warming will be considered for publication.

In this context, this Special Issue on “Dynamics of Pests and Their Natural Enemies in a Mediterranean Climate Change Scenario” is devoted to the most recent developments in the framework of biological control, niche modeling, spatiotemporal dynamics of pests and natural enemies, and climate change scenarios.

Prof. Dr. José Alberto Pereira
Dr. Jacinto Benhadi-Marín
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Insects is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • plant protection
  • integrated pest management
  • organic production
  • predators
  • community ecology
  • behavioral ecology
  • global warming

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 2408 KiB  
Article
Effect of Organic Farming and Agricultural Abandonment on Beneficial Arthropod Communities Associated with Olive Groves in Western Spain: Implications for Bactrocera oleae Management
by Víctor de Paz, Estefanía Tobajas, Natalia Rosas-Ramos, José Tormos, Josep Daniel Asís and Laura Baños-Picón
Insects 2022, 13(1), 48; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects13010048 - 1 Jan 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2696
Abstract
Agricultural abandonment and intensification are among the main land-use changes in Europe. Along with these processes, different proposals have been developed to counteract the negative effects derived from agricultural intensification, including organic management. In this context, we aimed to determine how organic management [...] Read more.
Agricultural abandonment and intensification are among the main land-use changes in Europe. Along with these processes, different proposals have been developed to counteract the negative effects derived from agricultural intensification, including organic management. In this context, we aimed to determine how organic management and farmland abandonment affect Bactrocera oleae and its main groups of natural enemies: hymenopteran parasitoids, spiders, ants, carabids, and staphylinids. Between May and October 2018, four samplings were carried out in nine olive groves (three under organic management, three under traditional management, and three abandoned) in a rural area on the border between Spain and Portugal (Salamanca, Western Spain). Our results suggested differences between the natural enemy community composition of abandoned and organic groves, with slightly higher levels of richness and abundance in abandoned groves. We found no differences between organic and traditional groves. The managed olive groves sustained a different natural enemy community but were similarly rich and diverse compared with the more complex abandoned groves, with the latter not acting as a reservoir of B. oleae in our study area. Both systems may provide complementary habitats; however, further abandonment could cause a reduction in heterogeneity at the landscape scale and, consequently, a biodiversity loss. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dynamics of Pests and Their Natural Enemies in a Mediterranean Climate Change Scenario)
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Review

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14 pages, 882 KiB  
Review
Climate Change and Major Pests of Mediterranean Olive Orchards: Are We Ready to Face the Global Heating?
by Alice Caselli and Ruggero Petacchi
Insects 2021, 12(9), 802; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects12090802 - 8 Sep 2021
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 4273
Abstract
Evidence of the impact of climate change on natural and agroecosystems is nowadays established worldwide, especially in the Mediterranean Basin, an area known to be very susceptible to heatwaves and drought. Olea europaea is one of the main income sources for the Mediterranean [...] Read more.
Evidence of the impact of climate change on natural and agroecosystems is nowadays established worldwide, especially in the Mediterranean Basin, an area known to be very susceptible to heatwaves and drought. Olea europaea is one of the main income sources for the Mediterranean agroeconomy, and it is considered a sensitive indicator of the climate change degree because of the tight relationship between its biology and temperature trend. Despite the economic importance of the olive, few studies are nowadays available concerning the consequences that global heating may have on its major pests. Among the climatic parameters, temperature is the key one influencing the relation between the olive tree and its most threatening parasites, including Bactrocera oleae and Prays oleae. Therefore, several prediction models are based on this climatic parameter (e.g., cumulative degree day models). Even if the use of models could be a promising tool to improve pest control strategies and to safeguard the Mediterranean olive patrimony, they are not currently available for most O. europaea pests, and they have to be used considering their limits. This work stresses the lack of knowledge about the biology and the ethology of olive pests under a climate change scenario, inviting the scientific community to focus on the topic. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dynamics of Pests and Their Natural Enemies in a Mediterranean Climate Change Scenario)
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