What works in conservation? Using expert assessment of summarised evidence to identify practices that enhance natural pest control in agriculture

Dicks, Lynn V. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8304-4468, Wright, Hugh L., Ashpole, Joscelyne E., Hutchison, James, McCormack, Caitlin G., Livoreil, Barbara, Zulka, Klaus Peter and Sutherland, William J. (2016) What works in conservation? Using expert assessment of summarised evidence to identify practices that enhance natural pest control in agriculture. Biodiversity and Conservation, 25 (7). pp. 1383-1399. ISSN 0960-3115

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Abstract

This paper documents an exercise to synthesize and assess the best available scientific knowledge on the effectiveness of different farm practices at enhancing natural pest regulation in agriculture. It demonstrates a novel combination of three approaches to evidence synthesis—systematic literature search, collated synopsis and evidence assessment using an expert panel. These approaches follow a logical sequence moving from a large volume of disparate evidence to a simple, easily understandable answer for use in policy or practice. The example of natural pest regulation in agriculture was selected as a case study within two independent science-policy interface projects, one European and one British. A third funder, a private business, supported the final stage to translate the synthesized findings into a useful, simplified output for agronomists. As a whole, the case study showcases how a network of scientific knowledge holders and knowledge users can work together to improve the use of science in policy and practice. The process identified five practices with good evidence of a benefit to natural pest regulation, with the most beneficial being ‘Combine trap and repellent crops in a push–pull system’. It highlights knowledge gaps, or potential research priorities, by showing practices considered important by stakeholders for which there is not enough evidence to make an assessment of effects on natural pest regulation, including ‘Alter the timing of pesticide application.’ Finally, the process identifies several important practices where the volume of evidence of effects on natural pest regulation was too large (>300 experimental studies) to be summarised with the resources available, and for which focused systematic reviews may be the best approach. These very well studied practices include ‘Reduce tillage’ and ‘Plant more than one crop per field’.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	pest regulation,ecosystem services,natural enemy,pest management,agriculture,evidence synthesis
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	10 Oct 2016 15:00
Last Modified:	12 May 2023 00:20
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/60814
DOI:	10.1007/s10531-016-1133-7

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