How to get even with pests

摘要

Organic farming supports higher biodiversity. Research involving the Colorado potato beetle shows that this increased diversity can deliver a better ecosystem service in the form of more effective pest control.rnThe control of pests by their natural enemies is a valuable ecosystem service1: unpaid, and often overlooked, predatory insects such as ladybirds devour their voracious cousins that damage crop plants. But the insecticide sprays used in conventional farming are largely non-selective, and Crowder et al.2 (page 109 of this issue) now show that such insecticides disrupt the communities of those natural enemies - which, in turn, provide less effective pest control.