Tea plantations are intensive monocultures and vulnerable to various pests due to a low diversity of natural enemies. In ancient tea plantations, the trees have grown for hundreds of years in mixed stands with many native trees, resulting in a landscape deemed as a “forest tea plantation.” However, no empirical studies have explicitly examined the effects of forest tea plantations on arthropod communities. Here, we addressed the difference of arthropod assemblages and ecological networks between the forest tea plantations and monoculture tea plantations, specifically focusing on the natural enemies and insect herbivores. Our results showed that the diversity of all arthropods, insect herbivore, and their natural enemies was higher in forest tea plantations compared to the monoculture tea plantations. In contrast, monoculture tea plantations had a higher abundance of all arthropods and insect herbivores due to a sharp increase in the abundance of the pest leafhopper, Empoasca vitis. Furthermore, forest tea plantation had higher co-occurrences among natural enemies and insect herbivores than a randomized network, which suggests that natural enemies may co-occur with some specific herbivore species. These results allow us to predict that forest tea plantations enhance insect herbivore control by increasing diversity of natural enemies and network structure between natural enemies and herbivores. Our study suggests that the ecological network approach opens up new possibilities for improving our prediction and understanding of pest suppression in agroecosystems.

中文翻译：

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不同茶园管理制度对节肢动物群落和网络结构的影响

茶园是密集的单一栽培，由于天敌的多样性低，容易受到各种害虫的侵害。在古茶园中，数百年的树木与许多乡土树种混杂在一起，形成了被称为“森林茶园”的景观。然而，没有实证研究明确检查森林茶园对节肢动物群落的影响。在这里，我们解决了森林茶园和单一栽培茶园之间节肢动物组合和生态网络的差异，特别关注天敌和昆虫食草动物。我们的结果表明，与单一栽培茶园相比，森林茶园中所有节肢动物、昆虫食草动物及其天敌的多样性更高。相比之下，Empoasca 葡萄。此外，与随机网络相比，森林茶园在天敌和昆虫食草动物之间的共同发生率更高，这表明天敌可能与某些特定的食草动物物种共同发生。这些结果使我们能够预测森林茶园通过增加天敌的多样性和天敌与食草动物之间的网络结构来增强昆虫食草动物的控制。我们的研究表明，生态网络方法为提高我们对农业生态系统中害虫抑制的预测和理解开辟了新的可能性。