Bumblebee nest density and the scale of available forage in arable landscapes

Knight, Mairi E.; Osborne, Juliet L.; Sanderson, Roy; Hale, Roddy J.; Martin, Andrew P.; Goulson, Dave

doi:10.1111/j.1752-4598.2009.00049.x

Cited by 91 publications

(116 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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Section: Effects Of Landscape Context and Foraging Habitat Qualitysupporting

confidence: 76%

“…This is supported by Knight's et al (2009) study on B. pascuorum, which suggests that nest density is related to the proportion of forage resources provided by noncrop areas across the same scale as in our study. Knight et al (2009) also suggest that high worker abundance at fixed sites is a result of more nests, rather than larger nests, within foraging range, but critically their sample patches were small and more representative of our control areas than of sown patches. In contrast, studies in German agricultural landscapes found no relationship between the proportion of seminatural habitats and worker density of several species on small sample plots (Westphal et al 2003(Westphal et al , 2006 or number of B. pascuorum nests (Herrmann et al 2007), but a significant positive relationship between mass flowering crop (MFC) area and worker density.…”

Section: Effects Of Landscape Context and Foraging Habitat Qualitysupporting

confidence: 76%

“…Therefore we are unable to conclude whether the sown flower mixture enhanced local population persistence from the current data alone. There is a pressing need for studies of changes in the abundance of social bees to take account of effective population size, which can be estimated using molecular methods (e.g., Herrmann et al 2007, Knight et al 2009, and this forms the basis of ongoing work by the authors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In July 2004 all land parcels (defined areas of continuous land use) within 1000 m of the patch center were visited and categorized according to their broad land use type and habitat composition. This radius took account of the best available estimates of foraging range for the dominant Bombus species in our study (Knight et al , 2009). For grasslands, field boundaries, uncropped arable areas, and woodlands the percentage cover of herbaceous forbs within the parcel was recorded as well as the cover of plant taxa used by foraging bumble bees, at both species and family level (usage by bumble bees being taken from published sources; Carvell et al 2006).…”

Section: Landscape Context and Habitat Quality Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bumble bee species' responses to a targeted conservation measure depend on landscape context and habitat quality

Carvell

Osborne

Bourke

et al. 2011

Ecological Applications

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143

122

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Abstract. The global decline of insect pollinators, especially bees, is cause for concern, and there is an urgent need for cost-effective conservation measures in agricultural landscapes. While landscape context and habitat quality are known to influence species richness and abundance of bees, there is a lack of evidence from manipulative field experiments on bees' responses to adaptive management across differently structured landscapes. We present the results of a large-scale study that investigated the effects of a targeted agri-environment scheme (AES) on bumble bees (Bombus spp.) over three years in the United Kingdom. Forage patches of different sizes were sown with a conservation flower mixture across eight sites covering a broad range of agricultural land use types. Species richness and worker densities (especially of the longer-tongued Bombus species for which the mixture was targeted) were significantly higher on sown forage patches than on existing non-crop control habitats throughout the three-year study, but the strength of this response depended on both the proportions of arable land and abundance of herbaceous forb species in the surrounding landscape. The size of sown patches also affected worker density, with smaller patches (0.25 ha) attracting higher densities of some species than larger patches (1.0 ha). Our models show that a targeted AES can deliver greater net benefits in more intensively farmed areas, in terms of the number and species richness of bumble bees supported, than in heterogeneous landscapes where other foraging habitats exist. These findings serve to strengthen the evidence base for extending agri-environment schemes to boost declining pollinator populations to a larger number of agricultural landscapes across the globe.

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Section: Effects Of Landscape Context and Foraging Habitat Qualitysupporting

confidence: 76%

Section: Effects Of Landscape Context and Foraging Habitat Qualitysupporting

confidence: 76%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Landscape Context and Habitat Quality Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bumble bee species' responses to a targeted conservation measure depend on landscape context and habitat quality

Carvell

Osborne

Bourke

et al. 2011

Ecological Applications

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143

122

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“…To do this we need to understand more about 897 the micro-habitat requirements for nesting (breeding) sites and where these sites are spatially 898 and temporally located. Though our knowledge base on wild bees is improving significantly 899 (Goulson et al, 2010;Knight et al, 2009;Williams et al, 2010), we rarely find nests that fail. 900 Furthermore, we understand even less about what composite features of a habitat provide 901 protection from threats such as predators and weather conditions (Boggs and Inouye, 2012).…”

Section: Understanding Insect Pollinator Population Responses To Resomentioning

confidence: 99%

Protecting an Ecosystem Service

Gill

Baldock

Brown

et al. 2016

Advances in Ecological Research

132

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Contact CEH NORA team at noraceh@ceh.ac.ukThe NERC and CEH trademarks and logos ('the Trademarks') are registered trademarks of NERC in the UK and other countries, and may not be used without the prior written consent of the Trademark owner. considers the importance of conserving pollinator diversity to maintain a suite of functional 79 traits to provide a diverse set of pollinator services. We explore how we can better understand 80 and mitigate the factors that threaten insect pollinator richness, placing our discussion within 81 the context of populations in predominantly agricultural landscapes in addition to urban 82 environments. We highlight a selection of important evidence gaps, with a number of 83 complementary research steps that can be taken to better understand: i) the stability of 84 pollinator communities in different landscapes in order to provide diverse pollinator services; 85 ii) how we can study the drivers of population change to mitigate the effects and support 86 stable sources of pollinator services; and, iii) how we can manage habitats in complex 87 landscapes to support insect pollinators and provide sustainable pollinator services for the 88 future. We advocate a collaborative effort to gain higher quality abundance data to 89 understand the stability of pollinator populations and predict future trends. In addition, for 90 effective mitigation strategies to be adopted, researchers need to conduct rigorous field-91 testing of outcomes under different landscape settings, acknowledge the needs of end-users 92 when developing research proposals and consider effective methods of knowledge transfer to 93 ensure effective uptake of actions. 94 95 96 5 | P a g e | P a g e

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ThePREDICTSdatabase: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts

Hudson

Newbold

Contu

et al. 2014

Ecology and Evolution

205

250

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Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species’ threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project – and avert – future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups – including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems – http://www.predicts.org.uk). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015.

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Bumblebee nest density and the scale of available forage in arable landscapes

Cited by 91 publications

References 36 publications

Bumble bee species' responses to a targeted conservation measure depend on landscape context and habitat quality

Bumble bee species' responses to a targeted conservation measure depend on landscape context and habitat quality

Protecting an Ecosystem Service

ThePREDICTSdatabase: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts

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