PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 14: Ecology of arable plants: Linking invertebrate and weed population dynamics
Organizer(s): J Cussans, A Mauchline, and K Gross
Tuesday, August 9, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 511a, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Dynamic links between plant and invertebrate communities in arable crops.
Smith, Victoria1, Bohan, David*,1, Haughton, Alison1, Clark, Suzanne1, 1 Division of Plant and Invertebrate Ecology, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, UK
ABSTRACT- Using data from the Farm-Scale Evaluations of GM herbicide-tolerant crops, conducted in 266 farm fields between 1999 and 2003 in the UK, we ask whether there is any evidence for linkages between arable plant (weed) and invertebrate communities. Specifically, we test, in sequence, null hypotheses that: 1) there is no consistent weed community; 2) there is no discernable invertebrate community; and 3) the plant and invertebrates are not related. We conduct these tests using a multivariate Canonical Variate Analyses (CVA), testing whether the weed and invertebrate communities change with the crop sown and herbicide management imposed, and Procrustes Analysis to evaluate whether the CVA patterns of the weeds and invertebrates are related to one another. Using this data we argue whether communities of weeds and invertebrates are present in UK arable farmland, and whether the plant community determines the invertebrate community. We go on to discuss whether these results are modified under different crop and herbicide management regimes, to deduce whether management might be used to generate the weed and invertebrate communities we would want in arable farmland.
Key words: CVA, procrustes, FSE, arable weed and invertebrate communities