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- 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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| 2. |
- Herbertsson, Lina, et al.
(författare)
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The impact of sown flower strips on plant reproductive success in Southern Sweden varies with landscape context
- 2018
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Ingår i: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-8809. ; 259, s. 127-134
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In agricultural landscapes, sown flower strips can benefit pollinators and pollination of nearby plants, but their impact on pollination in the wider landscape is poorly studied. We evaluated effects on reproductive success of field bean (Vicia faba) and woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca) using data from two study systems, both including study sites (1 km radius) with (flower strip sites) or without flower strips (control sites). To assess whether flower strips enhance pollination in the wider landscape, we compared the reproductive success between plants growing in field borders (> 160 m to nearest flower strip) at flower strips sites and control sites. We also tested if flower strips reallocate pollination functions in the landscape. We did this by comparing the reproductive success of plants at flower strip sites, growing adjacent to the flower strips with plants growing in a more distant field border at the same site (> 160 m). Finally, we tested if these potential effects depended on the heterogeneity of the landscape. In field borders without an adjacent flower strip, plant reproductive success was unaffected by the presence of a flower strip at the site, and increased with increasing landscape heterogeneity independently of site type (flower strip vs. control). In contrast, adjacent to the flower strips, reproductive success declined with increasing landscape heterogeneity, resulting in a positive net effect of adjacent flower strips in homogeneous landscapes and a negative effect in heterogeneous landscapes. Our results show that while decreasing landscape heterogeneity may impair pollination in homogeneous landscapes, this can be locally mitigated by sowing flower strips. However, in heterogeneous landscapes, flower strips may instead reduce pollination of adjacent plants.
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