Email: quentin.struelens < at > ird.fr

Supervisor: Dr Olivier DANGLES

Institutions: National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) / French National Research Institue for Sustainable Development (IRD)

Keywords: Ecology, Agroecology, Socio-ecosystem dynamics, Tropical Andes.

Title: Pest Management Across Scales: Insight From Mountainous Tropical Agroscapes.

Context: the tropical Andes is a world full of gradients that occur at several spatial scales. At the crop scale, a mosaic of spatial and temporal microclimates exists due to the high diversity of crop plants and the diel temperature changes. At the landscape scale, the diversities of land-management and land-use produce a gradient of landscape complexity. Finally, at the human-community scale, there is a wide diversity and combinations of human cultures related to historical contingency. This combination of abiotic-, biotic- and human-related gradients makes the tropical Andes an attractive playground for ecologists who are interested in understanding the effects and interactions of these drivers on agroecosystems.

Goal: I aim at identifying the drivers of pest control across these three spatial scales in order to propose practical solutions for the local farmer communities. Each chapter focuses on a specific scale, with its particular set of drivers of pest control.

Chapter 1: At the crop scale, temperatures vary tremendously both spatially and temporally, which impacts the development and emergence of pests. To cope with this highly fluctuating environment, we expect species to have developed a variety of developmental and phenological adaptations. We integrated, for the first time, slow-fast thermal strategies into a mechanistic predictive framework. The model calibrated with the observed individual thermal strategies showed a high accuracy in phenological predictions. This model can therefore be used to accurately predict the emergence of pests in the Andean context. Read more...

Chapter 2: At the landscape scale, we aim at identifying potential trade-offs and synergies between landscape characteristics and agrochemical use on insect diversity and functions. We are especially interested in the potentially opposite effect of these two drivers on arthropod pests and pollinators, which both ultimately influence crop yield.

Chapter 3: At the human-community scale, we aim at assessing whether agrochemical resellers are responsible for pesticide overuse in the Andes. Reseller knowledge on common pests and the quality of their recommendations will be evaluated.

Chapter 4: At the human-community and landscape scale, we aim at understanding how the perception of ecosystem services and the landscape can be influenced by the traditional knowledge of indigenous and non-indigenous farmers.

Altogether, these different chapters will provide new insights in several areas of natural and human sciences, along with practical solutions to be included into an integrated pest management program.

Publications:

Struelens, Q., Rebaudo, F., Quispe, R., & Dangles, O. (2018). Thermal pace-of-life strategies improve phenological predictions in ectotherms. Scientific Reports, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34274-1

Rebaudo, F., Struelens, Q., & Dangles, O. (2018). Modelling temperature-dependent development rate and phenology in arthropods: The devRate package for r. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 9(4), 1144‑1150.  https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12935

Mina, D., Struelens, Q., Carpio, C., Rivera, M., Rebai, N., Rebaudo, F., & Dangles, O. (2017). Lupin Pest Management in the Ecuadorian Andes: Current Knowledge and Perspectives. Outlooks on Pest Management, 28(6), 250‑256. https://doi.org/10.1564/v28_dec_05

Struelens, Q., Gonzales Pomar, K., Loza Herrera, S., Nina Huanca, G., Dangles, O., & Rebaudo, F. (2017). Market access and community size influence pastoral management of native and exotic livestock species: A case study in communities of the Cordillera Real in Bolivia’s high Andean wetlands. PLOS ONE, 12(12), e0189409. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189409

Rebaudo, F., Struelens, Q., Callizaya Condori, F., & Quispe, R. (2017). Relationship between temperature and development rate of Copitarsia incommoda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in the Bolivian Andes. Applied Entomology and Zoology, 52(2), 313‑320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13355-017-0480-5