Ecological compensation areas to enhance beneficial arthropods

Ecological compensation areas in agriculture not only have to enhance biodiversity of rare and threatend species, but also support biological control of agricultural pests by increasing the diversity and abundance of beneficial arthropods. This is of particularly importance for integrated production (IP) and biological farming. Our investigations show that almost all spiders and predatory beetles active in crop fields in spring and summer depend on seminatural habitats for overwintering.