Ecological complexity in a coffee agroecosystem: spatial heterogeneity, population persistence and biological control.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Spatial heterogeneity is essential for the persistence of many inherently unstable systems such as predator-prey and parasitoid-host interactions. Since biological interactions themselves can create heterogeneity in space, the heterogeneity necessary for the persistence of an unstable system could be the result of local interactions involving elements of the unstable system itself.

Methodology/principal findings

Here we report on a predatory ladybird beetle whose natural history suggests that the beetle requires the patchy distribution of the mutualism between its prey, the green coffee scale, and the arboreal ant, Azteca instabilis. Based on known ecological interactions and the natural history of the system, we constructed a spatially-explicit model and showed t

SUBMITTER: Liere H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3447771 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature