In blueberry crops, there are multiple pest species, and some of those can be suppressed by natural enemies including parasitoid wasps and predators. Parasitoid wasps occur within the environment often tracking pest species for food resources to complete their lifecycle. These small wasps are also sensitive to agricultural environments including agrichemicals, habitat availability, and climate. We investigated how the structure of parasitoid communities varied between organic and conventional blueberry systems, and how the communities of these parasitoids varied within field spatial scales (forested border vs edge vs interior). With the lower intensity of agricultural interventions occurring in organic systems and forested borders, we predicted more stable parasitoid numbers that would be insulated from predicted climate variability. In our study, parasitoids were observed in low abundance in each cropping system, with community structure dependent on both management practice and field position. Unmanaged blueberry fields and forested field borders contained more parasitoid families, and in conventional systems, we saw fewer families present in the field interior as compared to field borders. In this first study to characterize Southern parasitoid communities in blueberry production systems, we observed over 50 genera of parasitoids, with a few dominant families (Braconidae and Ichneumonidae) that would contribute to biological control in blueberry systems. Overall, we captured few parasitoids, which indicates a potential vulnerability in biological control, and the need for further research using other sampling techniques to better understand these parasitoid communities.

中文翻译：

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美国东南部不同的蓝莓生产农业环境中的寄生蜂群落

在蓝莓作物中，有多种害虫种类，其中一些可以被包括寄生蜂和捕食者在内的天敌抑制。寄生蜂出现在环境中，经常跟踪害虫物种以获取食物资源以完成其生命周期。这些小黄蜂对农业环境也很敏感，包括农药、栖息地可用性和气候。我们研究了寄生蜂群落的结构在有机蓝莓系统和常规蓝莓系统之间的差异，以及这些寄生蜂群落在田间空间尺度（森林边界 vs 边缘 vs 内部）内的变化。由于有机系统和森林边界发生的农业干预强度较低，我们预测更稳定的寄生蜂数量将不受预测的气候变化影响。在我们的研究中，在每个种植系统中都观察到寄生蜂的丰度较低，群落结构取决于管理实践和田间位置。未管理的蓝莓田和森林覆盖的田地边界包含更多的寄生蜂科，在传统系统中，与田地边界相比，我们看到在田地内部存在的家庭更少。在第一项描述蓝莓生产系统中南方寄生蜂群落特征的研究中，我们观察到超过 50 个寄生蜂属，其中有几个优势科（Braconidae 和 Ichneumonidae）有助于蓝莓系统的生物控制。总体而言，我们捕获的寄生蜂很少，这表明生物控制存在潜在的脆弱性，并且需要使用其他采样技术进行进一步研究以更好地了解这些寄生蜂群落。