Pest management and biodiversity in organic fruit production: the case of apple orchards

Numerous pesticide applications are required for orchard protection, regardless of the guidelines. Organic fruit production (OFP) mainly relies on the use of mineral fungicides and microbiological or naturally-occurring insecticides. The environmental impact of this type of production does not significantly differ from that of conventional production when assessed in terms of synthetic indicators. However, the abundance of earthworms, as well as the abundance and specific richness of arthropod pests and beneficials in the orchards and surrounding hedges, is greater in OFP than in conventional orchards. Generalist predators are usually less affected by OFP compounds than by the chemical pesticides applied in conventional orchards. OFP also benefits avian communities, and above all, insectivorous birds, for which organic orchards offer a suitable habitat similar to that of undisturbed natural areas. In addition to this general trend, discrepancies may be observed in the protection responses of different insect groups. The abundance of hymenopteran parasitoids is the lowest in organic orchards in which outbreaks of phytophagous mites are also recorded in relation to the intensive use of sulphur for scab protection. Biological insecticides often act in ways that are similar to those of chemical ones, and the restricted choice of available compounds is likely to induce resistance selection in insect pests. Although maintaining biodiversity is not a direct result of the implementation of OFP guidelines, it seems to be widely considered as an option by organic growers, both alone and as a complementary tool for pest regulation

Experimental simulation of environmental warming selects against pigmented morphs of land snails

H-R.K. and R.T. were gratefully hosted by INRA-PACA, Avignon, France, during the time of fieldwork in 2017. We gratefully acknowledge assistance in the field and with the open-top chamber experiments by Nik Triebskorn and Tim Triebskorn. The 35 field sites were sampled within the 2018 European Theba survey initiated by H-R.K and Thomas Knigge, Le Havre University, France. We also thank Menno Schilthuizen, Leiden University, the Netherlands, and another anonymous reviewer for constructive remarks on a previous manuscript version. Open access funding enabled and organized by ProjektDEAL.In terrestrial snails, thermal selection acts on shell coloration. However, the biological relevance of small differences in the intensity of shell pigmentation and the associated thermodynamic, physiological, and evolutionary consequences for snail diversity within the course of environmental warming are still insufficiently understood. To relate temperature‐driven internal heating, protein and membrane integrity impairment, escape behavior, place of residence selection, water loss, and mortality, we used experimentally warmed open‐top chambers and field observations with a total of >11,000 naturally or experimentally colored individuals of the highly polymorphic species Theba pisana (O.F. MÜLLER, 1774). We show that solar radiation in their natural Mediterranean habitat in Southern France poses intensifying thermal stress on increasingly pigmented snails that cannot be compensated for by behavioral responses. Individuals of all morphs acted neither jointly nor actively competed in climbing behavior, but acted similarly regardless of neighbor pigmentation intensity. Consequently, dark morphs progressively suffered from high internal temperatures, oxidative stress, and a breakdown of the chaperone system. Concomitant with increasing water loss, mortality increased with more intense pigmentation under simulated global warming conditions. In parallel with an increase in mean ambient temperature of 1.34°C over the past 30 years, the mortality rate of pigmented individuals in the field is, currently, about 50% higher than that of white morphs. A further increase of 1.12°C, as experimentally simulated in our study, would elevate this rate by another 26%. For 34 T. pisana populations from locations that are up to 2.7°C warmer than our experimental site, we show that both the frequency of pigmented morphs and overall pigmentation intensity decrease with an increase in average summer temperatures. We therefore predict a continuing strong decline in the frequency of pigmented morphs and a decrease in overall pigmentation intensity with ongoing global change in areas with strong solar radiation.ProjektDEA

Application of DEXiPM as a tool to co-design pome fruit systems towards sustainability

The design of fruit production systems considering the latest innovations is a real challenge. Before being tested in an experimental station or in real farm conditions, the global sustainability of these newly designed orchards needs to be evaluated. Based on the DEXiPM® model, the DEXiPM-pomefruit tool has been designed to make an ex ante assessment of the sustainability of innovative orchard systems. This model is based on a decision tree breaking the decisional problems of sustainability assessment into simpler units, referring to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Based on two case studies, we present here the steps and thought process of our group to improve fruit production systems towards innovative and integrated production systems. DEXiPM-pomefruit tool has been tested on apple and pear production systems in the frame of a working group of European researchers. It proved to be sufficiently reliable to select the most promising innovations in a given context. DEXiPM-pomefruit was also used as a dashboard to determine strengths and weaknesses of the tested production systems and therefore to identify improvements

PURE: WP5 -Milestone MS14 : descriptions of most important innovative non-chemical methods to control pests in apple and pear orchards

The objective of this report is the collation of existing and innovative non-chemical tools for key pests and diseases of pomefruit in 5 European regions.This report gives also a brief overview of the major pests in apple and pear orchards for the 5 regions in the context of their climatic and common cultivation conditions. The report is meant to be used as a guide within the frame of the PURE project for the identification of innovative IPM tools and assembling IPM solutions for pest control in pomefruit, i.e. developing for each key pest and region specific toolboxes, consisting of a set of complementary, promising toolsand strategies for pest management. In order to achieve this aim and to ease the data collation a database was developed

Soil BON earthworm: a global initiative on earthworm distribution, traits, and spatiotemporal diversity patterns.

Recent research on earthworms has shed light on their global distribution, with high alpha richness in temperate zones and high beta diversity in tropical areas. Climate and agricultural practices, notably plowing and conservation methods, were shown to strongly influence earthworm communities. However, data gaps persist in regions like North Australia, Asia, Russia, and Africa, limiting our understanding of earthworm distribution and their responses to global changes. Understanding changes within earthworm communities is crucial given their profound influence on ecosystem functions such as soil structure, nutrient dynamics, and plant growth. Classifying earthworms into functional groups remains complex, prompting the adoption of a trait-based approach for a more comprehensive classification, but there is no representative global data on earthworm traits. To address these knowledge gaps, the Soil BON Earthworm initiative aims at creating a global community of earthworm experts, standardizing sampling methods and databases, collecting time series data on earthworm communities, and modeling future earthworm distributions under different climate scenarios. The initiative aims to address key questions, such as the dynamic of earthworm communities over time and their response to environmental factors and anthropogenic influences, their impact on ecosystem functioning, and the redefinition of functional groups based on traits. The consortium invites researchers worldwide to contribute to this endeavor and encourages the resampling of study sites, to expand currently limited time series datasets. To facilitate data collection, standardized protocols and data templates are proposed, ensuring data quality and interoperability. Furthermore, the initiative intends to make use of citizen science in expanding observations and improving taxonomic coverage, highlighting platforms like iNaturalist for community en-gagement. Soil BON Earthworm seeks to unite global expertise and foster collaborative research to address critical gaps in under-standing earthworm ecology and its implications for ecosystems at a global scale

Global data on earthworm abundance, biomass, diversity and corresponding environmental properties

14 p.Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provided directly by authors, were collated with information on site locations, including coordinates, habitat cover, and soil properties. Datasets were required, at a minimum, to include abundance or biomass of earthworms at a site. Where possible, site-level species lists were included, as well as the abundance and biomass of individual species and ecological groups. This global dataset contains 10,840 sites, with 184 species, from 60 countries and all continents except Antarctica. The data were obtained from 182 published articles, published between 1973 and 2017, and 17 unpublished datasets. Amalgamating data into a single global database will assist researchers in investigating and answering a wide variety of pressing questions, for example, jointly assessing aboveground and belowground biodiversity distributions and drivers of biodiversity change