Apple is considered the most important fruit crop in temperate areas and profitable production depends on multiple ecosystem services, including the reduction of pest damage and the provision of sufficient pollination levels. Management approaches present an inherent trade‐off as each affects species differently. We quantified the direct and indirect effects of management (organic vs. integrated pest management, IPM) on species richness, ecosystem services, and fruit production in 85 apple orchards in three European countries. We also quantified how habit composition influenced these effects at three spatial scales: within orchards, adjacent to orchards, and in the surrounding landscape. Organic management resulted in 48% lower yield than IPM, and also that the variation between orchards was large with some organic orchards having a higher yield than the average yield of IPM orchards. The lower yield in organic orchards resulted directly from management practices, and from higher pest damage in organic orchards. These negative yield effects were partly offset by indirect positive effects from more natural enemies and higher flower visitation rates in organic orchards. Two factors other than management affected species richness and ecosystem services. Higher cover of flowering plants within and adjacent to the apple trees increased flower visitation rates by pollinating insects and a higher cover of apple orchards in the landscape decreased species richness of beneficial arthropods. The species richness of beneficial arthropods in orchards was uncorrelated with fruit production, suggesting that diversity can be increased without large yield loss. At the same time, organic orchards had 38% higher species richness than IPM orchards, an effect that is likely due to differences in pest management. Synthesis and applications. Our results indicate that organic management is more efficient than integrated pest management in developing environmentally friendly apple orchards with higher species richness. We also demonstrate that there is no inherent trade‐off between species richness and yield. Development of more environmentally friendly means for pest control, which do not negatively affect pollination services, needs to be a priority for sustainable apple production.

Functional biodiversity is of fundamental importance for pest control. Many natural enemies rely on floral resources to complete their life cycle. Farmers need to ensure the availability of suitable and sufficient floral biodiversity. This review summarizes 66 studies on the management of floral biodiversity in apple orchards, published since 1986. Approaches followed different degrees of intervention: short-term practices (mowing regime and weed maintenance, cover crops), establishment of durable ecological infrastructures (perennial flower strips, hedgerows) and re-design of the crop system (intercropping, agroforestry). Although short-term practices did not always target the nutrition of natural enemies by flowering plants, living conditions for them (alternative prey, provision of habitat) were often improved. Perennial flower strips reliably enhanced natural enemies and techniques for their introduction continuously developed. Resident natural enemies and their impact in pest control reacted positively to the introduction of a more diversified vegetation, whereas the response of very mobile organisms was often not directly linked to the measures taken. A careful selection and management of plants with particular traits exploitable by most natural enemies emerged as a key-point for success. Now the elaborated design of such measures needs to be adopted by stakeholders and policy makers to encourage farmers to implement these measures in their orchards.

Intensive agricultural management negatively affects both natural enemies of pests and pollinators. Such management also has the potential to adversely affect the ecosystem services that these communities confer. Organic management has been proposed as an alternative method to mitigate such problems by restoring the services provided by arthropod communities. We evaluated the effect of organic management on two ecosystem services provided by arthropods in apple orchards: pollination and biological control. We used relative decrease in colonies to assess biological control of the major apple aphid pest, and measured pollination through fruit set, number of seeds per apple and pollinator visitation. Additionally, we monitored the organisms responsible for pollination and biological control services and established the impact of pollination on apple quality. Our results show a strong effect of organic management on biological control and on the temporal dynamic of natural enemy–pest interactions. Parameters such as aphid colony suppression, first and repeated occurrence of natural enemies, natural enemy species evenness and natural enemy abundance were significantly higher in organic compared to conventional orchards. Predatory bugs were the natural enemies best‐affected by organic management and played a key role in early predation of aphids preventing colony growth. In this instance, pollination was not influenced by organic management. It is likely due to the temporal scale at which this service is delivered, a scale that differs greatly from biological control, combined with differences in the dispersal capacity of the organisms involved. Fruit weight, calcium, potassium and magnesium content were positively affected by pollination success. Synthesis and applications. We found that organic management in apple orchards preserves the local natural enemy community, and specifically predatory bug populations, essential for early aphid colony suppression. Our results suggest that, in conventional orchards, local management options that decrease or even eliminate pesticide use early in the season would increase the biological control of aphids. This would lead to reduction in apple damage at harvest. Our results on pollination success indicate that the implementation of organic management at orchard scale does not enhance pollination services for apple growers.