A dataset of occurrence of wild bees and their interaction with foraging plants along a livestock grazing gradient of northern Tanzania

Lasway, Julius V.; Steffan‐Dewenter, Ingolf; Mremi, Rudolf; Kinabo, Neema R; Sanya, John; Nyakunga, Oliver C.; Martin, Emanuel H.; Eardley, Connal; Pauly, Alain; Peters, Marcell K.; Njovu, Henry K.

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2023.109181

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…A flower visit was defined as having occurred when the pollinator body comes into contact with the reproductive part of a flower and does not just land on or fly over it (Lundgren et al, 2013;Tucker & Rehan, 2017). Approximately 80% of insect pollinators who visited bean flowers in subplots were captured using a sweep net and temporally stored in 70% ethanol before being mounted and identified in the laboratory (Lasway et al, 2023;Stein et al, 2018). Insect pollinators from Lepidoptera and Coleoptera were collected even though they are not recognized as efficient pollinators for bean plants (Paulino et al, 2023).…”

Section: Insect Pollinator Abundances Species Richness and Visitation...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical agroforestry supports insect pollinators and improves bean yield

Kingazi,

Temu,

Sirima

et al. 2024

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Pollination services contribute to crop productivity worldwide, but insect pollinators are declining in most agricultural landscapes, mainly due to agricultural expansion and an increase in intensive agricultural practices. To reduce the negative effects of agricultural expansion and intensification, farmers can adopt ecological interventions, such as diversifying agricultural systems through agroforestry. However, there have been variable results on the effectiveness of agroforestry in enhancing pollinators and pollination services. Furthermore, most of the information has been generated in temperate regions, while the impact of agroforestry in tropical East Africa is largely unknown. Using common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) as the focal crop, this study tested whether a tropical agroforestry system called Chagga home gardens supports pollinator communities and improves pollination and crop yield. We examined 16 agroforestry plots paired with 16 non‐agroforestry plots located along a gradient of woody (trees and shrubs) cover within a 1‐km radius to document the abundance, species richness and visitation rates of pollinating insects on bean flowers and how they contributed to bean yield. The beans planted in the agroforestry plots had almost twice the abundance of insect pollinators, three times the richness of the species and almost twice the visitation rates than those planted in non‐agroforestry plots. We also found a significant positive effect of woody cover in the surrounding landscape on insect pollinator abundances, but not on species richness and visitation rates. Additionally, the abundance and richness of insect pollinators increased significantly with flower abundance, while the overall plant richness in a plot significantly increased insect pollinator abundance and their visitation rate. The difference in bean yield between unbagged flowers (in which insect pollinators were allowed to access bean flowers) and bagged flowers and the total yield were higher in agroforestry than in non‐agroforestry plots. Synthesis and applications. This study showed that, compared to monoculture, agroforestry generally promotes pollination services in a tropical context. Furthermore, we found that agroforestry is likely to be particularly helpful for pollinators when it increases flower abundance and plant richness and if it is coordinated so that woody cover also increases at the landscape scale.

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Section: Insect Pollinator Abundances Species Richness and Visitation...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical agroforestry supports insect pollinators and improves bean yield

Kingazi,

Temu,

Sirima

et al. 2024

Journal of Applied Ecology

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“…The soil of Mt. Meru originates from the volcanic activities of the mountain which is formed by loose and light volcanic ashes that make it susceptible to erosion in the absence of vegetation cover (Lasway et al, 2023;Lundgren, 1978).…”

Section: Study Area Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Species richness, vegetation structure, and floristic composition of woody plants along the elevation gradient of Mt. Meru, Tanzania

Lasway

Njovu

Eustace³

et al. 2023

Biotropica

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Understanding the change in vegetation composition along elevational gradients is critical for species conservation in a changing world. We studied the species richness, tree height, and floristic composition of woody plants along an elevation gradient of protected habitats on the eastern slope of Mount Meru and analyzed how these vegetation variables are influenced by the interplay of temperature and precipitation. Vegetation data were collected on 44 plots systematically placed along five transects spanning an elevational gradient of 1600 to 3400 m a.s.l. We used ordinary linear models and multivariate analyses to test the effect of mean annual temperature and precipitation on woody plant species richness, tree height, and floristic composition. We found that species richness, mean tree height, and maximum tree height declined monotonically with elevation. Models that included only mean annual temperature as an explanatory variable were generally best supported to predict changes in species richness and tree height along the elevation gradient. We found significant changes in woody plant floristic composition with elevation, which were shaped by an interaction of mean annual temperature and precipitation. While plant communities consistently changed with temperature along the elevation gradient, levels of precipitation were more important for plant communities at lower than for those at higher elevations. Our study suggests that changes in temperature and precipitation regimes in the course of climate change will reshape elevational gradients of diversity, tree height, and correlated carbon storage in ecosystems, and the sequence of tree communities on East African mountains.

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A dataset of occurrence of wild bees and their interaction with foraging plants along a livestock grazing gradient of northern Tanzania

Cited by 2 publications

References 6 publications

Tropical agroforestry supports insect pollinators and improves bean yield

Tropical agroforestry supports insect pollinators and improves bean yield

Species richness, vegetation structure, and floristic composition of woody plants along the elevation gradient of Mt. Meru, Tanzania

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