Habitat heterogeneity reduces abundance of invasive mealybugs in subtropical fruit crops [Dataset]

The study was conducted in 17 persimmon and 16 citrus orchards in Eastern Spain. In each orchard, nine trees were sampled across three seasons: late spring, mid-summer, and mid-autumn. For each tree and sampling date, we counted and identified the mealybugs present in 120 leaves (30 per cardinal direction), 40 fruits (10 per cardinal direction), and the trunk surface (from ground level to 50 cm height). All observed mealybugs were identified up to the species level. The number of parasitized mealybugs was recorded. Local and landscape heterogeneity were characterized based on the vegetation cover within the plots and the proportion of land use types in the landscape surrounding the plots, respectively. On each sampling date and plot, we assessed the ground cover of spontaneous vegetation, assigning values between 0 and 6 based on the percentage of ground covered by vegetation. We characterized the landscape around sampled plots using Geographic Information System of Agricultural Plots (SIGPAC) for 2020 and 2021. To calculate the surrounding land use proportions for each plot, we assigned varying weights to landscape patches based on their proximity to the sampling location using two different Gaussian decay functions.

This dataset is associated to the published paper “Habitat heterogeneity reduces abundance of invasive mealybugs in subtropical fruit crops”. This study tested whether habitat heterogeneity at local and landscape scales reduces the abundance of invasive mealybug species in subtropical crops from Spain. The dataset gathers information on the abundance of mealybugs and their parasitism. In addition, data related to the habitat is collected at both local and landscape levels.