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Since most agricultural fields are in constant change due to cycles of sowing and harvesting, landscape elements such as extensively managed grasslands and traditional orchards serve as refuge habitats for a wide range of insects. From these habitats, insects can recolonize surrounding agricultural areas once suitable conditions return.
The abundance and diversity of these insects determine their contribution to various ecosystem services. In addition to crop pollination, the regulation of pests by beneficial organisms such as predatory insects and parasitoid wasps is of major importance for agricultural systems.
We aim to monitor natural populations of these beneficial insects over long time periods to assess whether ongoing insect declines also affect beneficial species in agricultural landscapes and threaten their ecosystem functions. To detect such long-term trends in an environment that is constantly changing, we focus on studying beneficial insect populations in more stable, near-natural refuge habitats.
For this purpose, we are developing different approaches to make long-term monitoring as efficient as possible. Our target organisms are hoverflies, which are highly mobile and provide dual functions as both pollinators and pest control agents, and parasitoid wasps, which are more locally bound beneficial species. We employ both classical entomological trapping methods and automated insect camera traps developed in-house, which are intended for future population monitoring. In addition, we are testing citizen science approaches to involve volunteers in monitoring these populations.
