Detecting pest control services across spatial and temporal scales

• Weekly surveys reveal trends in aphid dynamics that seasonal averages do not.
• Aphid-predating syrphid fly larvae increase with natural habitat surrounding farms.
• Aphid population growth decreases as syrphid densities increase.
• This ultimately results in fewer aphids as natural habitat increases within 1.5 km.

Natural habitat may deliver ecosystem services to agriculture through the provision of natural enemies of agricultural pests. Natural or non-crop habitat has strongly positive effects on natural enemies in cropland, but the resulting impact on pests is not as well established. This study measured weekly natural enemy (syrphid fly larvae) and pest (cabbage aphid) abundances in Central California broccoli fields for three years. Abundance of syrphid fly larvae increased strongly with the proportion of natural habitat surrounding the farm. As the density of syrphid fly larvae increased, weekly aphid population growth rates slowed, such that aphid densities just prior to harvest were lowest in farms with natural habitat. These landscape-mediated impacts of syrphids on aphids were not evident when data were aggregated into annual averages, a common metric in research on pest control services. We suggest that higher temporal resolution of data for natural enemy and pest abundance can reveal top–down control that is otherwise masked by seasonal and interannual variation in environmental factors.