TY - JOUR
T1 - Birds and bats enhance cacao yield despite suppressing arthropod mesopredation
AU - Ocampo-Ariza, Carolina
AU - Vansynghel, Justine
AU - Bertleff, Denise
AU - Maas, Bea
AU - Schumacher, Nils
AU - Ulloque-Samatelo, Carlos
AU - Yovera, Fredy F.
AU - Thomas, Evert
AU - Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf
AU - Tscharntke, Teja
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Dr. Daniel Karp and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on the manuscript. We are grateful to all cacao smallholders from Norandino Ltda. and the APAGROP La Quemazón who participated in our study, including the owners of the 12 study agroforests.Alex Cruz, Duber Reyes, Albino Riega and Ernulfo Cunayque provided essential assistance in the preparation and maintenance of exclusion experiments. We thank the schools of La Quemazón and Palonegro, and Jesús Zurita for their help managing bird and bat exclusions, and the latter for assistance in arthropod predation experiments. Sophie Müller and Natalí Acosta Jara contributed their entomological expertise during arthropod surveys. This work received financial support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) commissioned and administered through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Fund for International Agricultural Research (FIA), grant number 81219430, and of the CGIAR Fund Donors. Justine Vansynghel received partial funding from the DAAD STIBET fellowship awarded by the University of Würzburg. Research was developed under permit number 0519‐2019‐MINAGRI‐SERFOR‐DGGSPFFS. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Funding Information:
We thank Dr. Daniel Karp and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on the manuscript. We are grateful to all cacao smallholders from Norandino Ltda. and the APAGROP La Quemazón who participated in our study, including the owners of the 12 study agroforests.Alex Cruz, Duber Reyes, Albino Riega and Ernulfo Cunayque provided essential assistance in the preparation and maintenance of exclusion experiments. We thank the schools of La Quemazón and Palonegro, and Jesús Zurita for their help managing bird and bat exclusions, and the latter for assistance in arthropod predation experiments. Sophie Müller and Natalí Acosta Jara contributed their entomological expertise during arthropod surveys. This work received financial support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) commissioned and administered through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Fund for International Agricultural Research (FIA), grant number 81219430, and of the CGIAR Fund Donors. Justine Vansynghel received partial funding from the DAAD STIBET fellowship awarded by the University of Würzburg. Research was developed under permit number 0519-2019-MINAGRI-SERFOR-DGGSPFFS. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Ecological Applications published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America.
PY - 2023/7
Y1 - 2023/7
N2 - Bird- and bat-mediated biocontrol benefits the productivity of tropical commodity crops such as cacao, but the ecological interactions driving these ecosystem services remain poorly understood. Whereas birds and bats prey on herbivorous arthropods, they may also prey on arthropod mesopredators such as ants, with poorly understood consequences for pest biocontrol. We used a full-factorial experiment excluding birds, bats, and ants to assess their effects on (a) the abundance of multiple arthropod groups; (b) predation pressure on arthropods evaluated through artificial sentinel caterpillars; and (c) cacao yield over 1 year in shaded agroforestry systems of native cacao varieties in Peru. Birds and bats increased cacao yield by 118%, which translates in smallholder benefits of ca. US $959 ha−1 year−1. Birds and bats decreased predation by ants and other arthropods, but contributed to the control of phytophagous taxa such as aphids and mealybugs. By contrast, ant presence increased the abundance of these sap-sucking insects, with negative impacts for cacao yield. Notably, high abundances of the dominant ant Nylanderia sp., known to attend sap-sucking insects, were associated with lower cacao yield along a distance gradient from the closest forest edge. According to these results, arthropod predation by birds and bats, rather than mesopredation by arthropods, was most responsible for increases in cacao yield. Moving forward, detailed research about their trophic interactions will be necessary to identify the cause of such benefits. Retaining and restoring the large benefits of birds and bats as well as minimizing disservices by other taxa in cacao agroforests can benefit from management schemes that prioritize preservation of shade trees and adjacent forests within agroforestry landscapes.
AB - Bird- and bat-mediated biocontrol benefits the productivity of tropical commodity crops such as cacao, but the ecological interactions driving these ecosystem services remain poorly understood. Whereas birds and bats prey on herbivorous arthropods, they may also prey on arthropod mesopredators such as ants, with poorly understood consequences for pest biocontrol. We used a full-factorial experiment excluding birds, bats, and ants to assess their effects on (a) the abundance of multiple arthropod groups; (b) predation pressure on arthropods evaluated through artificial sentinel caterpillars; and (c) cacao yield over 1 year in shaded agroforestry systems of native cacao varieties in Peru. Birds and bats increased cacao yield by 118%, which translates in smallholder benefits of ca. US $959 ha−1 year−1. Birds and bats decreased predation by ants and other arthropods, but contributed to the control of phytophagous taxa such as aphids and mealybugs. By contrast, ant presence increased the abundance of these sap-sucking insects, with negative impacts for cacao yield. Notably, high abundances of the dominant ant Nylanderia sp., known to attend sap-sucking insects, were associated with lower cacao yield along a distance gradient from the closest forest edge. According to these results, arthropod predation by birds and bats, rather than mesopredation by arthropods, was most responsible for increases in cacao yield. Moving forward, detailed research about their trophic interactions will be necessary to identify the cause of such benefits. Retaining and restoring the large benefits of birds and bats as well as minimizing disservices by other taxa in cacao agroforests can benefit from management schemes that prioritize preservation of shade trees and adjacent forests within agroforestry landscapes.
KW - ants
KW - biological pest control
KW - cacao agroforestry
KW - ecosystem services
KW - multitrophic interactions
KW - native cacao
KW - Peru
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85159896522&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/eap.2886
DO - 10.1002/eap.2886
M3 - Article
C2 - 37166162
AN - SCOPUS:85159896522
VL - 33
JO - Ecological Applications
JF - Ecological Applications
SN - 1051-0761
IS - 5
M1 - e2886
ER -