Beneficial Insects &
Plant Diversity
in NYC Community Gardens
What Are Beneficial Insects?
Beneficial
insects are insects that prey on other insects that eat the plants in our gardens
and farms. Some examples of beneficial insects include ladybugs, spiders and
predatory wasps. In our project, we will be focusing mostly on predatory wasps.
An increased number and diversity of beneficial insects may help us to reduce
the amount of potentially toxic pesticides we need to prevent pest
invasion. By reducing the amount of
pesticides we use on our crops, we help protect the environment and our
health.
Now Let's Look At Predatory
Wasps….
Predatory
wasps lay their eggs in the bodies of plant-feeding pest insects such as
caterpillars and aphids, thereby reducing the populations of these pest
species. We hypothesize that as the
variety of plants present in the garden increase, the diversity of predatory
wasps and other beneficial insects will also increase. This means that if you plant many different
types of plants in your garden, insect pests may cause less overall damage to
the plants. Therefore, you will not
have to contend with as many pesky insects in your garden AND you will have
many different types of delicious fruits and vegetables to eat!
Our
Experiment…
In our
experiment, we will test the hypothesis that plant diversity increases
predatory wasp diversity. With
permission, we would like to leave out shallow, flat pan traps for five days
that will be filled with an inch and half of water. These traps will also have
a small amount of soap and salt in them to more easily collect some of the
insects flying about in the garden.
When we put the traps in the garden, we will also count the number and
types of plants growing in the garden. After five days, we will return to the
garden to remove the traps and take the insects in them back to the laboratory.
There, we will count the number of beneficial wasp species and the number of
pest insects there are in the garden. Hopefully our results will confirm our
hypothesis!
For More Information, Contact Us!
Email: Lauren
Sacks (ljs44@columbia.edu) or Kevel Lindsay (kcl10@columbia.edu)
Phone: Dr.
James Danoff-Burg, 212-854-0149
Mail: James
Danoff-Burg, Center for Environmental Research & Conservation, Columbia
University, MC 5557, NY, NY 10027
Web: James Danoff-Burg Lab Page
