PhD defence

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).

Date
Jan 31, 2019 4:00 PM — 6:00 PM
Event
PhD defence
Location
Halle, Germany
Christophe Dominik
Christophe Dominik
Postdoctoral Researcher

My research interests include landscape ecology, pollination ecology, biological control, gut microbiome, and agroecology.

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