Comparison of invertebrate biodiversity in New Zealand apple orchards using integrated pest management, with or without codling moth mating disruption, or organic pest management

On-farm biodiversity is increasingly perceived as an indicator of sustainable practices. However, in-depth examinations of the influence of management on the components of this diversity (specific taxa, feeding guilds, pests, ecosystem service providers, native taxa, and so on) are still lacking for many crops and growing regions. To compare the diversity of invertebrates in commercial apple orchards using three different pest management systems (Integrated Fruit Production with or without codling moth mating disruption and certified organic), we collected taxa from five of each type of orchard in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. We used pitfall traps, branch tapping and sticky traps to collect 210,829 specimens, representing 764 taxa, during two sampling sessions: December 2011 and February/March 2012. Groundcover plant communities in the alleys between tree rows were not detectably different among the three orchard types. Multivariate analysis showed that the composition of invertebrate communities sampled from organic orchards differed significantly from those in orchards using the two different integrated pest management systems and that the use of codling moth disruption in the integrated systems had no discernible impact on invertebrate biodiversity in those orchards. Sub-group analysis revealed some differences between integrated and organic orchards for herbivores, predators and parasitoids, but not omnivores, detritivores and fungivores. Native or endemic species comprised 40% of taxa in all three orchard types, and there were no detectable differences in the composition of these assemblages among orchards. Assemblages of apple pests in organic orchards differed significantly from those in the other orchard types, but this effect was lost if Edwardsiana froggatti, which was abundant in organic orchards, was omitted from the analysis. All orchard types had similar assemblages of key natural enemies, suggesting that current integrated pest management systems employed on apple orchards in New Zealand have similar impacts to organic systems in this respect.