Vegetable and fruit production in the Southern Arava region face significant challenges due to yield losses induced by insect pests. In particular, date plantations suffer from insect pests, causing severe damages to the crops and reducing significantly the yield (El-Shafie et al. 2017). While the conventional use of pesticides is limited as the application for date plantations is often not practical, biological pest-control can help significantly decreasing insect pest induced yield losses. Several studies provide evidence that birds can depress abundance of insect pests and hence, significantly increase the yield (Blount et al. 2021; Díaz-Siefer et al. 2022; Tscharntke et al. 2005; Whelan et al. 2008). Seasonal high abundance of migratory songbirds can provide important biological pest-control services to the agricultural site (Blount et al. 2021; Kross et al. 2016) that they may use for stopover, when songbirds land to refuel, rest and recover (Schmaljohann et al. 2022).
The Southern Arava region is located along the eastern migration flyways between Eurasia and Africa used as intercontinental junction by a variety of migratory birds and in high abundance (Shirihai 1996). Particularly during spring migration, a large number of migratory songbirds funnel via the Red Sea coast over the Arava Valley in Southern Israel (Schekler et al. 2022; Shirihai 1996). Moreover, this stopover site is of particular relevance due to the close proximity to a wide ecological barrier en route, the Saharo-Arabian desert belt. Consequently, migratory songbirds concentrate here in spring to refuel after crossing a wide ecological barrier (Schekler et al. 2022; Shirihai 1996). Besides the high importance as migratory route and stopover site for many migratory songbirds, the Southern Arava region is also characterized by its importance for date production and hence, large date plantations are located along the valley. This unique setting makes the study area ideal to address knowledge gaps in our understanding of pest-control services provided by migratory songbirds.

להמשך קריאה : Enhancing the economic value of bio-pest control by migratory birds in desert agriculture