Control of crop pests by shifting host plant availability and natural enemy activity at landscape scales has great potential to enhance the sustainability of agriculture. However, mainstreaming natural pest control requires improved understanding of how its benefits can be realized across a variety of agroecological contexts. Empirical studies suggest significant but highly variable responses of natural pest control to land-use change. Current ecological models are either too specific to provide insight across agroecosystems or too generic to guide management with actionable predictions. We suggest obtaining the full benefit of available empirical, theoretical, and methodological knowledge by combining trait-mediated understanding from correlative studies with the explicit representation of causal relationships achieved by mechanistic modeling. To link these frameworks, we adapt the concept of archetypes, or context-specific generalizations, from sustainability science. Similar responses of natural pest control to land-use gradients across cases that share key attributes, such as functional traits of focal organisms, indicate general processes that drive system behavior in a context-sensitive manner. Based on such observations of natural pest control, a systematic definition of archetypes can provide the basis for mechanistic models of intermediate generality that cover all major agroecosystems worldwide. Example applications demonstrate the potential for upscaling understanding and improving predictions of natural pest control, based on knowledge transfer and scientific synthesis. A broader application of this mechanistic archetype approach promises to enhance ecology's contribution to natural resource management across diverse regions and social-ecological contexts.

中文翻译：

---

原型模型对自然害虫防治对土地利用变化的反应进行了更深入的理解

通过在景观尺度上改变寄主植物可用性和天敌活动来控制作物害虫，具有提高农业可持续性的巨大潜力。然而，将自然害虫防治纳入主流需要更好地了解如何在各种农业生态环境中实现其效益。实证研究表明，自然害虫防治对土地利用变化的反应显着但变化很大。当前的生态模型要么过于具体，无法提供跨农业生态系统的洞察力，要么过于笼统，无法通过可操作的预测来指导管理。我们建议通过将相关研究中以特质为中介的理解与通过机械建模实现的因果关系的明确表示相结合，来充分利用可用的经验、理论和方法知识。为了将这些框架联系起来，我们采用了可持续发展科学中的原型概念或特定背景的概括。在具有共同关键属性（例如焦点生物的功能特征）的案例中，自然害虫防治对土地利用梯度的类似反应表明以上下文敏感的方式驱动系统行为的一般过程。基于对自然害虫控制的此类观察，原型的系统定义可以为涵盖全球所有主要农业生态系统的中等普遍性的机械模型提供基础。示例应用展示了在知识转移和科学综合的基础上扩大对自然害虫控制的理解和改进预测的潜力。这种机械原型方法的更广泛应用有望增强生态”