Field validation of laboratory-derived IOBC toxicity ratings for natural enemies in commercial vineyards

Management of pests and diseases remains a key issue for agricultural profitability and environmental health. Moves towards sustainability require a reduction in chemical toxicity loadings and conservation of natural enemies to maintain pest control. There is a lot of information from laboratory tests regarding the effects of chemicals on beneficial predators and parasitoids but very few translations of these effects into field impacts particularly under commercial conditions. To address this issue we calculated a chemical toxicity score for 19 commercial vineyards based on IOBC toxicity ratings and application number, and compared this to extensive field collections to determine if natural enemy populations can be related to predicted toxicity loadings. Invertebrates were sampled four times during the growing season using canopy sticky traps and ground level pitfall traps. Ordination analyses using non-metric multidimensional scaling indicated community structure in vineyards correlated to site chemical use, while principal components analyses identified the taxa involved. One ordination axis from canopy data and two axes from ground level data were correlated to overall IOBC ratings for the vineyards. Principal components analyses indicated that spiders, lacewings, carabids and parasitoids were all affected by chemical use. IOBC rating based on laboratory studies therefore correlated with chemical effects on field populations of natural enemies in commercial vineyards where complexes of pesticides were applied. The use of chemicals with low toxicity to beneficials as predicted by IOBC ratings will contribute to preservation and maintenance of natural enemies in vineyard ecosystems. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.