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Limited benefits of non-crop vegetation on spiders in Australian vineyards: regional or crop differences?

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Abstract

In crops, invertebrate natural enemies such as spiders have been documented as responding to non-crop vegetation at the local and landscape scales, particularly in northern Europe. Much of this information is based on data from arable or annual crops and it is possible that spider numbers in more persistent perennial systems including vineyards may be less dependent on non-crop vegetation. To test the relationship between spider abundance and non-crop vegetation within the context of Australian vineyards, we sampled spiders in 54 vineyards with adjacent non-crop vegetation, from three different regions. Landscape composition in the area surrounding each of the 54 sites was characterized at 11 spatial scales from 95 m to 3 km radius and spiders were sampled monthly using canopy sticky traps and ground pitfall traps. There were only weak relationships between pasture or woody vegetation and the abundance of spiders in vineyards at all spatial scales. At the local scale, abundance of most spider families tended to be greater in vineyards with adjacent pasture. At the landscape scale there were inconsistent patterns. We discuss possible reasons for these apparent contrasting patterns between perennial and annual crops and European compared to Australian agroecosystems.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation with support from Australia’s grape growers and winemakers. Additional financial support was provided by an Albert Shimmer scholarship to CFD, the Holsworth Foundation and the Australian Research Council through their fellowship scheme. Landscape-use analysis and data were provided by Emily Thomson. Assistance with extensive field collections was provided by Michael Nash, David Sharley and Chee Seng Chong. We thank two anonymous reviewers whose constructive comments assisted in improvement of an earlier version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Linda J. Thomson.

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D’Alberto, C.F., Hoffmann, A.A. & Thomson, L.J. Limited benefits of non-crop vegetation on spiders in Australian vineyards: regional or crop differences?. BioControl 57, 541–552 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10526-011-9435-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10526-011-9435-x

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