Forest management strategies driving forest structural change and mediating prey-predator interactions - a potential tool for pest control?

The outcomes of this research aim to directly and primarily contribute to local economic development in the Entre Rios province of Argentina. We aim to provide potential ways to enhance forest productivity in a way that enhances biodiversity, thus strengthening the local forest sector. More broadly it will address two UN Sustainable Development Goals (12, 15) and assist with Argentina’s commitment to meeting sustainable forest management
targets set by the Conventional on Biological Diversity. Eucalyptus plantations are increasingly established across the globe for their fast-growing timber. In just 12-15 years a full commercial rotation can be completed, and as such, they represent a very intensive form of silviculture. Despite this, there is evidence that these forests, when established on farmland rather than replacing natural forests, have the potential to enhance biodiversity by adding forested habitat to intensively managed agricultural landscapes. The challenge is to determine i) the biodiversity that these forests support, ii) how this biodiversity underpins
important ecosystem services such as pest control, and, iii) how biodiversity and ecosystem services can be maintained and enhanced through adopting more sympathetic management strategies. This project will determine how differing management strategies can enhance both biodiversity and a key ecosystem service, pest control, in eucalyptus plantation forests and will begin to provide an evidence base a more sustainable model of commercial forestry for the Entre Rios region of Argentina