Abstract The top-down suppression of pest insects by their natural enemies, such as insectivorous bats, represents an important ecosystem service in agricultural systems. Recognizing the importance of bats to suppress pest populations and further conserve their populations near agricultural systems could reduce damage to crops thereby potentially increasing the monetary gain of farmers. Viticulture represents one of the most extensive and economically important agricultural crops in the Mediterranean biome. While pest consumption by bats has been recently revealed in vineyards, direct evidence of the reduction of grapevine pests by bats in vineyards is lacking, and their benefits to winegrape production remains to be quantified. Using large nocturnal exclosures in vineyards, we examined the top-down effects of aerial insectivorous bats in suppressing insect populations by assessing leaf and grape cluster damage; we also examined the benefit of these natural pest predators by quantifying resulting increases in potential vineyard yield. Grapevine plants excluded from bats had significantly higher leaf herbivory and greater grape cluster damage than control plots. Grape cluster damage was 7% lower on control plots, yielding an average economic benefit of US$188-$248/ha/year due to bat predation. These results provide the first experimental evidence that bats reduce grapevine pest insect infections and thus increase vineyard yield and winegrowers’ income. Therefore, bats should be included in future biodiversity conservation plans in vineyards and be considered within agricultural management strategies based on natural pest suppression.

中文翻译：

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量化蝙蝠在智利中部葡萄园景观中提供的害虫防治服务的生态和经济价值

摘要 食虫蝙蝠等天敌对害虫的自上而下抑制是农业系统中一项重要的生态系统服务。认识到蝙蝠在抑制害虫种群和进一步保护农业系统附近种群的重要性可以减少对作物的损害，从而有可能增加农民的经济收益。葡萄栽培是地中海生物群落中种植面积最广、经济上最重要的农作物之一。虽然最近在葡萄园中发现了蝙蝠对害虫的消耗，但缺乏蝙蝠在葡萄园中减少葡萄害虫的直接证据，它们对葡萄生产的好处仍有待量化。在葡萄园中使用大型夜间围栏，我们通过评估叶子和葡萄簇的损害，研究了空中食虫蝙蝠在抑制昆虫种群方面的自上而下的影响；我们还通过量化潜在葡萄园产量的增加来研究这些天然害虫捕食者的好处。与对照地块相比，从蝙蝠中排除的葡萄藤植物具有显着更高的叶食草性和更大的葡萄簇损伤。由于蝙蝠捕食，葡萄集群的损害在控制地块上降低了 7%，平均经济效益为 188-248 美元/公顷/年。这些结果提供了第一个实验证据，证明蝙蝠减少葡萄藤害虫感染，从而增加葡萄园产量和葡萄种植者的收入。所以，