Publications by authors named "Christine A Lynch"
Background: Generalist predators that kill and eat other natural enemies can weaken biological control. However, pest suppression can be disrupted even if actual intraguild predation is infrequent, if predators reduce their foraging to lower their risk of being killed. In turn, predator-predator interference might be frequent when few other prey are available, but less common when herbivorous and detritus-feeding prey are plentiful.
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- The study examined how different prey populations affect the ability of generalist predators, specifically Nabis sp. and Geocoris sp., to control the Colorado potato beetle in organic versus conventional potato fields.
- In organic fields, higher biodiversity led to decreased predation of the beetles by Nabis, suggesting these predators switched to more abundant alternative prey; in contrast, predation increased with arthropod richness in conventional fields.
- Geocoris predation was more effective in organic fields but decreased when alternative prey like detritus-feeding flies were abundant, indicating that the presence of other prey can significantly disrupt beetle feeding.