Cropland expansion facilitated the outbreak of cereal aphids during 1951–2010 in China

Landscape-scale pattern could affect ecosystem service such as biocontrol of agricultural pests. Additionally, pest outbreak has been shown to be interwoven with land-use intensity. In the present research, we collected and analysed the 60-year data of cereal aphids and wheat area during 1951–2010 in China. Regression model was applied to analyse the relationship between pest damage and cropland expansion. Results showed that the percentage of cereal aphid outbreak area in wheat area increased rapidly during 1951–2010. It was 9 % during 1951–1960, while it was above 60 % during 2001–2010. In addition, effect of cropland expansion on damage of cereal aphids was significantly positive, which indicated that cropland expansion in agricultural landscape may enhance pest damage greatly. Finally, we concluded that cropland expansion was one of the most important drivers of increasing pest outbreak, which should be considered in sustainable management of cereal aphids combined with other factor (e.g. climate changes and resistant variety) at large spatiotemporal scale.