Effects of organic planting on arthropod diversity in farmland: A meta-analysis

doi:10.17520/biods.2021243

Abstract

Abstract:

Aims: Organic planting is widely considered an environment-friendly agricultural management pattern that plays a crucial role in the protection of agricultural biodiversity. The change of arthropod biodiversity is proposed as a key ecological indicator for agricultural sustainability. However, the effects of organic planting on arthropod biodiversity remain inconsistent in published studies, which may have resulted from the durations of organic planting, land use and cropping systems across the individual studies. The diverse results from previous studies could weaken the practicability of their conclusions in policymaking, which highlighted the necessity of conducting a meta-analysis to provide a generalized understanding of the effects of organic planting on arthropod diversity. This study aims to quantify the impact of organic planting on arthropod biodiversity using meta-analysis and provide scientific support for the formulation of ecological compensation policy under organic planting.

Methods: This meta-analysis conducted a literature review of peer-reviewed papers published before the end of 2020 which compared the impacts of organic and conventional planting on arthropod biodiversity. The results from 75 experimental sites, which contained 227 paired valid datasets, were selected for our analysis. To distinguish between the sources of variation for the responses of biodiversity to organic planting, the paired measurements were further subdivided into subgroups according to the factors of duration, land use, crop variety, pesticide application frequency in conventional planting, and arthropod functional groups.

Results: The results showed that compared with conventional planting, organic planting significantly improved the richness, abundance, and evenness of arthropods by the rate of 34.95%, 64.95%, and 12.09%, respectively. The abundance of the natural enemies of arthropods increased by 71.80% (P < 0.05) while the abundance of pests decreased by 10.46% under organic planting. The richness of the natural enemies and pests under organic planting were both increased by 22.50% and 31.03% respectively, relative to conventional planting (P < 0.05). The application of pesticides significantly decreased the arthropod biodiversity in conventional planting. Compared with the organic planting, an increase in the time of pesticide application in the conventional planting lead to decreases in the arthropod richness and evenness of arthropods by 13.54% and 2.64%, respectively. The responses of arthropod richness and abundance to organic planting were significantly positive when the duration was equal to or exceeded three years. The positive effect of organic planting on arthropod abundance in paddy fields was 4.7 times higher than that in dryland (P < 0.05), but the responses of richness and evenness to organic planting were comparable between paddy and dryland (P > 0.05). The responses of arthropod richness, abundance, and evenness to organic planting under the vegetable system were 81.46%, 74.14%, and 18.55%, respectively (P < 0.05); and under the tea-planting system were 48.86%, 49.06%, 30.88% (P < 0.05), respectively. The benefits of organic planting on arthropod biodiversity under the cropping systems of vegetable and tea were demonstrated to be more significant than that under other cropping systems.

Conclusions: Our meta-analysis suggests that organic planting plays an important role in protecting and improving biodiversity in croplands by increasing the abundance of natural enemies and decreasing pests abundance. The frequency of pesticide application was observed to be the key factor which significantly regulates the change of arthropod biodiversity. To promote the positive effects of organic planting on the protection of biodiversity in cropland, policymakers should not only to encourage the implementation of organic planting in regions where necessary conditions are satisfied, but also facilitate the ecological innovation of conventional planting by introducing the principles, concepts, and technologies of organic planting into conventional planting. This will be of more practical significance to agricultural biodiversity conservation in China.

Key words: agricultural biodiversity, organic planting, conventional planting, arthropod, meta-analysis

Fangqian Huang, Chao Wang, Mingqing Liu, Qiuhui Chen, Xiao Han, Lei Wang, Yunguan Xi, Jibing Zhang. Effects of organic planting on arthropod diversity in farmland: A meta-analysis[J]. Biodiv Sci, 2022, 30(1): 21243.

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URL: https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/10.17520/biods.2021243

https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/Y2022/V30/I1/21243

Figures/Tables 7

Table 1 The distribution of research area contained in the meta analysis

样点分布区域(国内) Distribution of research area in China	试验点位数量 No. of experimental sites	样点分布区域(国外) Distribution of research area outside China	试验点位数量 No. of experimental sites
新疆 Xinjiang	1	克罗地亚 Croatia	1
宁夏 Ningxia	2	巴西 Brazil	3
四川 Sichuan	1	德国 Germany	2
贵州 Guizhou	1	法国 France	1
广西 Guangxi	2	美国 The United States	14
广东 Guangdong	5	葡萄牙 Portugal	2
湖南 Hunan	4	瑞士 Switzerland	5
江西 Jiangxi	2	西班牙 Spain	3
福建 Fujian	2	希腊 Greece	4
安徽 Anhui	2	意大利 Italy	1
上海 Shanghai	2	英国 The United Kingdom	5
江苏 Jiangsu	6
山东 Shandong	2
河北 Hebei	1
北京 Beijing	1

Table 2 Classification of categorical variables as explanatory factors

亚组类别 Categorical variable	亚组水平 Categorical level
有机种植年限 Years of organic planting (years)	3-10、11-15、> 15
耕地类型 Land use	旱地、水田 Dryland, paddy
作物类型 Crop variety	粮食、茶叶、蔬菜、水果、药材、油料作物 Grain, tea, vegetable, fruit, crude drug, oil crop
常规种植年施药次数 Pesticide application frequency in conventional planting (times/year)	1-5、6-10、11-15、> 15
功能类群 Arthropod communities	天敌、害虫 Natural enemy, pest

Fig. 1 The relative change of arthropod biodiversity under organic planting compared with conventional planting. The dots in the figure are the mean effect sizes, which represent the relative change of arthropod diversity under organic planting compared with conventional planting. The error lines indicate the 95% confidence interval (95% CIs) of the mean effect sizes, and the value in brackets is the sample size. Mean effect sizes were considered to be significantly different from the control if their 95% CIs did not cross the zero axis.

Fig. 2 The relative change of arthropod richness (A), abundance (B), and evenness (C) under organic planting compared with conventional planting. The dots in the figure are the mean effect sizes, which represent the relative change of different diversity index (%) under organic planting compared with conventional planting. The error lines indicate the 95% confidence interval (95% CIs) of the mean effect sizes, and the value in brackets is the sample size. Mean effect sizes were considered to be significantly different from the control if their 95% CIs did not cross the zero axis, and were considered to be significantly different if their 95% CIs did not overlap. Between-group heterogeneity (Qb) and the probability (P) were used to describe statistical differences in the diversity index responses between different levels of the categorized factors.

Fig. 3 The relationship between the relative changes of arthropod richness under organic planting compared with conventional planting and the pesticide application frequency in conventional planting

Fig. 4 The relationship between the relative changes of arthropod evenness under organic planting compared with conventional planting and the pesticide application frequency in conventional planting

Table 3 Responses of arthropod pest and natural enemy subcommunities diversity to organic planting over conventional planting

多样性指数 Diversity index	功能类群 Arthropod communities	总效应值 Total effect size (%)	95%置信区间 95% confidence interval (%)	样本量 Sample size (n)	组间异质性Between-group heterogeneity (Q_b)	显著性差异 Probability (P)
丰富度 Richness	天敌 Natural enemy	22.50	13.76-33.62	40	0.81	0.45
丰富度 Richness	害虫 Pest	31.03	9.22-53.18	18	0.81	0.45
多度 Abundance	天敌 Natural enemy	71.80	45.25-105.15	49	5.82	0.001
多度 Abundance	害虫 Pest	-10.46	-38.62-28.19	19	5.82	0.001

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