Abstract
Irrigated rice croplands are among the most biologically diverse agroecosystems globally. However, this biodiversity is threatened by agricultural intensification and homogenization of farmed areas, resulting in a degradation of ecosystem services such as natural pest regulation. While evidence exists that increasing landscape heterogeneity in some agroecosystems can enhance natural enemy populations and promote bio-control, little is known about the multi-scale effects of landscape composition and configuration on arthropod communities in rice agroecosystems. In this thesis, I examined the influence of landscape heterogeneity on the distribution of arthropods in three rice-production regions in the Philippines and derived practical recommendations to improve biodiversity and biological control in rice production systems. Through the different chapters of this thesis, I measured landscape heterogeneity at different levels of complexity and spatial scales, and tested its effect on different types of the arthropod biodiversity (taxonomic and functional diversity).
Christophe Dominik
Postdoctoral Researcher
My research interests include landscape ecology, pollination ecology, biological control, gut microbiome, and agroecology.