Deep Phenotyping of the Broader Autism Phenotype in Epilepsy: A Transdiagnostic Marker of Epilepsy and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Excessive and irrational pesticide use negatively impacts biodiversity, reduces natural enemies, increases pesticide residues in agricultural products, increases pests’ resistance to insecticide, and triggers frequent pest outbreaks, hindering sustainable agriculture (Xu , ; Hu , ). Biological control of agricultural insect pests offers an eco‐friendly alternative to chemical insecticides and is a promising strategy for reducing crop losses (Sow , ). A comprehensive understanding of trophic interactions between predators and prey or parasitoids and hosts within a community can greatly improve biological control in modern agroecosystems. However, characterizing food webs in ecosystems remains challenging, especially for small or cryptic arthropods, as they often require visual observation, rearing, and taxonomic expertise (Lue ., ). An emerging field of study combining next‐generation sequencing and DNA barcoding (metabarcoding) to examine prey DNA in predators and parasitoid DNA within their hosts is addressing these challenges and improving our understanding of multi‐trophic dynamics to enhance biological control (González‐Chang , ; Schmidt , ; Lue ., ). Metabarcoding can identify a broad range of food items in the gut of an organism using generalized primer sets and sequencing the resulting amplicons, eliminating the need to design species‐specific primers (Pompanon , ; Gomez‐Polo , ; González‐Chang , ). Despite its potential, the use of metabarcoding to reveal trophic interactions in agricultural systems is still in its early stages (González‐Chang , ). More empirical studies are needed to develop sustainable pest management solutions that rely on functionally relevant food webs and better understand the community composition and network structure of complex agroecosystems (Schmidt , ). Over the past decade, ecologists have increasingly used metabarcoding to study the diets of insectivorous bats across various agricultural products and regions (Aizpurua ., ; Hughes , ; Maslo , ). These studies suggest that bats are involved in regulating pests and may contribute to biodiversity‐based ecosystem programs (Maslo , ). Among arthropod natural enemies, spiders significantly aid in tow‐down pest control by consuming various insect pests (Mezőfi , ), although their efficacy varied among crops (Michalko , ). Most dietary studies have focused on natural enemies in wild environments, with no metabarcoding research yet on the field diets of artificially released natural enemies in agroecosystems. Augmentation biological control (ABC) involves periodically releasing mass‐reared natural enemies in large numbers to quickly control pests (Orr & Lahiri, ). The principal purpose of ABC is to control target pests that cause serious damage to yields in agroecosystems. However, the effectiveness of released natural enemies against target pests and their effect on nontarget pests, particularly their potential trophic interactions, remain unknown. These issues can be resolved using metabarcoding (Lue ., ).