Temporal trends in arthropod abundances after the transition to organic farming in paddy fields.

ABSTRACT: Organic farming aims to reduce the effect on the ecosystem and enhance biodiversity in agricultural areas, but the long-term effectiveness of its application is unclear. Assessments have rarely included various taxonomic groups with different ecological and economic roles. In paddy fields with different numbers of years elapsed since the transition from conventional to organic farming, we investigated changes in the abundance of insect pests, generalist predators, and species of conservation concern. The abundance of various arthropods exhibited diverse trends with respect to years elapsed since the transition to organic farming. Larval lepidopterans, Tetragnatha spiders, and some planthoppers and stink bugs showed non-linear increases over time, eventually reaching saturation, such as the

SUBMITTER: Tsutsui MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5764318 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature