Aphids in Different Non-crop Areas of Agrarian Landscape in Northern Poland

Abstract

 The following objectives have been formulated: 1) qualitative and quantitative evaluation of aphid communities (Hemiptera: Aphididae) associated with specific plant communities inside agricultural landscape (so-called within-farm habitats, semi-natural habitats, etc.), such as: field boundaries, bushes and forest islands, typical for the Lower Vistula Valley in northern Poland, and 2) determination of the types of non-crop habitats nutritionally attractive to aphids that affect the diversity of their communities. The study was conducted in the years 1996-2001. Material consisted of aphids from the family Aphididae (Hemiptera: Aphididae). Among ten various types of semi-natural habitats examined within six years of the study, of which six were located in the so-called multicrop agricultural space, and four in the so-called landscape park, more attractive to aphids were the habitats between large crop fields than in the landscape park beside small crop fields. This can indicate that the aphids choose sites with higher availability of suitable food. There were more aphids detected in the bushes with a stable and diverse vegetation structure, predominance of trees, shrubs, and on the forest edges rather than in open areas such as field boundaries. This means that aphids concentrate in the off-field habitats border large crop lands.