Are landscape structures important for the colonization of spinach fields by insects?

At planting time crops are placed into a landscape mosaic. Whether crop plants are colonized by pests or not, mainly depends on the presence of source populations in off crop habitats and on insect dispersal behaviour. In the current study we evaluate the impact of different landscape elements, crop and non-crop habitats, on colonization of spinach fields by potential pest insects. Unfortunately the used modelling approaches, i.e. randomForest and multiple linear regression analysis did not show a congruent result. With randomForest models it was impossible to identify important landscape elements. In contrast multiple linear regression models point towards several crop and non-crop habitats that influenced insect abundance on the spinach fields. The specific relevance of landscape elements on insect colonisation is discussed.