Orlando Hernández Leal
Aerial insectivorous bats are the arthropod controllers in agricultural areas. This control service is affected by the use of pesticides in conventional agriculture, since it negatively affects the survival of insect populations and therefore reduces bat resources. Organic agriculture has been proposed as an alternative production strategy that avoids the use of pesticides by favoring the natural interactions that occur in crops.
Light trap for nocturnal flying insects in peach orchards.
By using acoustic monitoring and identifying the pesticides in nocturnal flying insects from organic and conventional agricultural schemes, we hope to understand how the activity of insectivorous bats and their prey respond to a gradient of agricultural management.
Header: Bat detector and data logger installed in conventional peach orchard.