engleski

Morphological variation of shape and size of the Pterostichus melas melas population in different agro-ecosystems

Agricultural landscapes are increasingly being simplified and undergo frequent and intense disturbances such as harvest and the input of chemicals ; these factors have been postulated as contributing to failed establishment of natural enemies and biological control programmes. The impact of pest management strategies on the soil biota is crucial since it includes a lot of recognized beneficial animals. Carabid beetles are polyphagous predators that can act as biological control agents of insect pests and weeds. The abundance of carabids in agro-ecosystems has been positively correlated with prey removal rates and with a reduction of crop damage by various agricultural pests. Agricultural practices in intensive crop production often create a polluted environment, which generates different degrees of stress in insects. Also different soil management in different types of production could be another factor that influences stress in soil dwelling insects. Previous research suggested that degrees of phenotypic disturbances reflect the ability of an individual to overcome the effects of stress. We examined the effects of different agro-ecosystems on carabids population in the integrated plant production of arable (sugar beet, corn field, wheat and oilseed rape) and perennial crops (apple orchard). The goal was to study how beetle morphological diversity was affected by different soil management and pesticide use within production of different arable crops and among annual and perennial crop production. Different agricultural production should generate different degrees of disturbances in the insect communities, whose effects can be quantified by geometric morphometric techniques. We analysed morphological differences in males and females of Pterostichus melas melas (Creutzer, 1799) and estimated how morphological variation and sexual dimorphism may be affected by intensive agro ecosystems such as arable and perennial crops.

carabids ; insecticides ; soil management ; arable crops ; perennial crops ; geometric morphometric

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