Playing with ecological complexity

Traditional and small-scale farmers frequently have diverse farming systems. They have the intuition that biodiversity is working for them. Sometimes, the ecosystem services provided by biodiversity are fairly obvious, multiple bee species pollinating crops, predators eating pests, flowers attracting parasitoids of caterpillars, etc. However, hidden under these obvious direct ecological interactions are multitudes of complex interactions that are impossible to “see with the naked eye”. Here we present an example of complex ecological interactions that contribute to pest control in coffee farms and describe a participatory educational initiative that helps us communicate the complexity of nature to farmers.