%0 Journal Article
%T Can Multiple Natural Enemies Cooperate without Destabilizing Control? An Ecological-Network Theory of Complementarity, Competition, and Intraguild Predation
%A Michelle Tan
%A Adrian Goh
%A Karolina Nowak
%A Tomasz Wrobel
%J Entomology and Applied Science Letters
%@ 2349-2864
%D 2025
%V 12
%N 3
%R 10.51847/xJxB5Yi5qq
%P 24-36
%X Biological control increasingly relies on assemblages of predators, parasitoids, pathogens, and other beneficial organisms whose combined actions may broaden pest suppression but may also generate competition, behavioural interference, intraguild predation, and unstable trophic feedbacks. The central scientific and decision problem is therefore not whether multiple natural enemies can attack the same pest, but under which ecological conditions their joint action produces complementary, persistent control rather than redundancy, antagonism, or transient suppression. This theory article develops an evidence-grounded ecological-network synthesis that integrates natural-enemy richness and composition, functional complementarity, niche partitioning, resource overlap, competition, intraguild predation, environmental context, network structure, and programme implementation. The synthesis distinguishes observed interactions from inferred mechanisms and separates species richness from complementarity, niche difference from cooperation, pairwise compatibility from network stability, and short-term additive effects from durable control. The strongest defensible conclusion is that multi-enemy performance emerges from the balance of positive and negative interaction pathways whose direction and strength vary with agent identity, pest stage, resource availability, trophic structure, spatial scale, environmental conditions, and operational practice. Current evidence remains limited by short experimental durations, incomplete interaction networks, inconsistent trait–function relationships, scale-dependent outcomes, and insufficient linkage between interaction detection and population-level pest suppression. The proposed theory therefore treats multi-agent design as a staged, context-sensitive network problem rather than a species-accumulation exercise. Progress requires mechanism-specific compatibility tests, explicit treatment of uncertainty and indirect effects, cross-scale validation, and programme governance that permits combinations to advance, be redesigned, or be discontinued according to pre-specified biological and operational evidence.
%U https://easletters.com/article/can-multiple-natural-enemies-cooperate-without-destabilizing-control-an-ecological-network-theory-o-pf5oq3tsg8piv3d