| 1. |
- Holzschuh, Andrea, et al.
(författare)
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Mass-flowering crops dilute pollinator abundance in agricultural landscapes across Europe
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ecology Letters. - : Wiley. - 1461-023X .- 1461-0248. ; , s. 1228-1236
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mass-flowering crops (MFCs) are increasingly cultivated and might influence pollinator communities in MFC fields and nearby semi-natural habitats (SNHs). Across six European regions and 2 years, we assessed how landscape-scale cover of MFCs affected pollinator densities in 408 MFC fields and adjacent SNHs. In MFC fields, densities of bumblebees, solitary bees, managed honeybees and hoverflies were negatively related to the cover of MFCs in the landscape. In SNHs, densities of bumblebees declined with increasing cover of MFCs but densities of honeybees increased. The densities of all pollinators were generally unrelated to the cover of SNHs in the landscape. Although MFC fields apparently attracted pollinators from SNHs, in landscapes with large areas of MFCs they became diluted. The resulting lower densities might negatively affect yields of pollinator-dependent crops and the reproductive success of wild plants. An expansion of MFCs needs to be accompanied by pollinator-supporting practices in agricultural landscapes.
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| 2. |
- Magrach, Ainhoa, et al.
(författare)
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Plant-pollinator networks in semi-natural grasslands are resistant to the loss of pollinators during blooming of mass-flowering crops
- 2018
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Ingår i: Ecography. - : Wiley. - 0906-7590 .- 1600-0587. ; 41:1, s. 62-74
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mass-flowering crops lead to spatial redistributions of pollinators and to transient shortages within nearby semi-natural grasslands, but the impacts on plant-pollinator interactions remain largely unexplored. Here, we characterised which pollinator species are attracted by oilseed rape and how this affected the structure of plant-pollinator networks in nearby grasslands. We surveyed 177 networks from three countries (Germany, Sweden and United Kingdom) in 24 landscapes with high crop cover, and compared them to 24 landscapes with low or no oilseed rape during and after crop blooming. On average 55% of grassland pollinator species were found on the crop, which attracted 8-35% of individuals away from grasslands. However, networks in the grasslands were resistant to these reductions, since mainly abundant and highly mobile species were attracted. Nonetheless, simulations indicated that network structural changes could be triggered if > 50% of individuals were attracted to the crop (a value well-above that found in our study system), which could affect community stability and resilience to further disturbance.
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| 3. |
- Gonzalez-Varo, Juan P., et al.
(författare)
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Combined effects of global change pressures on animal-mediated pollination
- 2013
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Ingår i: Trends in Ecology & Evolution. - : Elsevier BV. - 1872-8383 .- 0169-5347. ; 28:9, s. 524-530
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pollination is an essential process in the sexual reproduction of seed plants and a key ecosystem service to human welfare. Animal pollinators decline as a consequence of five major global change pressures: climate change, landscape alteration, agricultural intensification, non-native species, and spread of pathogens. These pressures, which differ in their biotic or abiotic nature and their spatiotemporal scales, can interact in nonadditive ways (synergistically or antagonistically), but are rarely considered together in studies of pollinator and/or pollination decline. Management actions aimed at buffering the impacts of a particular pressure could thereby prove ineffective if another pressure is present. Here, we focus on empirical evidence of the combined effects of global change pressures on pollination, highlighting gaps in current knowledge and future research needs.
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| 4. |
- Herbertsson, Lina, et al.
(författare)
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Bees increase seed set of wild plants while the proportion of arable land has a variable effect on pollination in European agricultural landscapes
- 2021
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Ingår i: Plant Ecology and Evolution. - : Societe Royale de Botanique de Belgique. - 2032-3913 .- 2032-3921. ; 154:3, s. 341-350
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background and aims: Agricultural intensification and loss of farmland heterogeneity have contributed to population declines of wild bees and other pollinators, which may have caused subsequent declines in insect-pollinated wild plants.Material and methods: Using data from 37 studies on 22 pollinator-dependent wild plant species across Europe, we investigated whether flower visitation and seed set of insect-pollinated plants decline with an increasing proportion of arable land within 1 km.Key results: Seed set increased with increasing flower visitation by bees, most of which were wild bees, but not with increasing flower visitation by other insects. Increasing proportion of arable land had a strongly variable effect on seed set and flower visitation by bees across studies.Conclusion:Factors such as landscape configuration, local habitat quality, and temporally changing resource availability (e.g. due to mass-flowering crops or honey bee hives) could have modified the effect of arable land on pollination. While our results highlight that the persistence of wild bees is crucial to maintain plant diversity, we also show that pollen limitation due to declining bee populations in homogenized agricultural landscapes is not a universal driver causing parallel losses of bees and insect-pollinated plants.
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