Abundance and richness of herbivorous insects and natural enemies on farms underagroecological transition in the Federal District

Abstract

The monitoring of herbivores and their natural enemies, and the evaluation of biological control
are important knowledge for the correctly application of ecological pest management on
agroecological farms. The objective of this research was to study the composition of herbivore
community and their natural enemies on two vegetable cropping farms in different stages
ofagroecological transition, in order to compare the diversity and abundance of these functional
groups. To survey the entomofauna, it was used yellow sticky traps. The two farms studied
presented similarnatural enemiesdiversity, although abundance between was different. Diversity
of herbivores fauna was also similar in bothfarms. The abundance of pests also diverged
between the two areas. The data suggest that natural biological control was possibly responsible
for the control of insect pests keeping the density of herbivores in acceptable level