Effect of strip cropping on carabid beetle and staphylinids

Summary

Strip cropping is a cropping method used in agriculture to regulate agroecosystem functions such as nutrient and water dynamics, while there is little knowledge on its impact on beneficial arthropods in northern conditions and biological pest control potential they offer.. Over a two-year period (2018 and 2019), we experimented on an organic cabbage (Brassica oleracea) – faba bean (Vicia faba) strip cropping system. The experimental setup consisted of three 270m2 plots, representing monocrops of faba bean and cabbage, and a plot of alternating strips of the two. Carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and staphylinids (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) were sampled by pitfall trapping using three one-week trapping periods over each of the two growing seasons. We examined the effects of cabbage – faba bean strip cropping on carabid beetle activity density and genus richness and staphylinid activity density. Our results show that this particular strip cropping system has the potential to increase carabid beetle activity density and genus richness, but not that of the staphylinids.