Relationships between insect pests and their parasitoids in a winter oilseed rape crop

Abstract

Studies of trophic and spatio-temporal relationships among invertebrates in crops are key to the identification of agents that have potential in biological control, and could enable modification of crop agronomy, such as better targeting of insecticide, to conserve beneficial species. This paper reports on the first intensive study in Europe of the impact of parasitoids on populations of major pests of oilseed rape and the implications of their spatio-temporal field distributions for conservation biocontrol (Ferguson et al., 2003, 2004, 2006).