Ecological intensification is globally promoted as a pathway toward sustainable agriculture, yet its multitrophic effects in organic field crops remain insufficiently understood. This study evaluates its influence on the family-level abundance of Coleoptera, Hemiptera, and Hymenoptera in organic soybean and corn fields. The experiment used replicated plots per treatment and weekly flight-trap sampling across two crop-years. Within each crop system, we compared eco-intensive treatments, which consisted of crimson clover cover cropping with rye residue and no-tillage in soybean (2023), and cowpea mixed cropping with reduced tillage in corn (2024), with standard organic farming practices. While overall family-level diversity remained similar between treatments, specific insect families exhibited notable differences in abundance. In soybeans, ecological intensification was associated with higher abundance of several families that include predators or parasitoids and lower abundance of several families that include herbivorous taxa. In corn, ecological intensification was associated with increases observed in families that include herbivores, parasitoids, and pollinators. Although we did not quantify whether these changes in family-level abundance led to changes in ecosystem service delivery or pest suppression, these contrasting family-level abundance patterns indicate that vegetation-based ecological intensification can alter insect community dynamics in multiple directions depending on crop and guild. Our findings highlight family-level patterns in insect community responses that may inform future studies of ecological intensification in agricultural systems. Continued species-level identification for key families, multi-year within-crop replication, and sampling aligned with crop phenology will be essential to better evaluate potential trade-offs and refine ecological intensification strategies for sustainable organic agriculture.
Park et al. (Wed,) studied this question.