Crop‐pollinating Diptera have diverse diets and habitat needs in both larval and adult stages

Abstract

Insects are important pollinators of global food crops and wild plants. The adult and larval diet and habitat needs are well known for many bee taxa, but poorly understood for other pollinating taxa. Non-bee pollinators often feed on different substrates in their larval and adult life stages, and this diet and habitat diversity has important implications for their conservation and management. We reviewed the global literature on crop pollinating Diptera (the true flies) to identify both larval and adult fly diet and habitat needs. We then assembled the published larval and adult diets and habitat needs of beneficial fly pollinators found globally into a freely accessible database. Of the 405 fly species known to visit global food crops, we found relevant published evidence regarding larval and adult diet and habitat information for 254 species, which inhabited all eight global biogeographic regions. We found the larvae of these

Bee-Friendly Native Seed Mixtures for the Greening of Solar Parks

“…Numerous other aspects must be considered for a pollinator-friendly design of solar parks. In addition to adapted management, the requirements of the different roles and life stages of various non-bee pollinators [84,85,89,107,108] must also be taken into account. Besides wild bees, many other pollinator insects such as Diptera and Lepidoptera make important contributions to the regulating ecosystem service of "pollination" [89,109,110].…”

“…Besides wild bees, many other pollinator insects such as Diptera and Lepidoptera make important contributions to the regulating ecosystem service of "pollination" [89,109,110]. These species groups have very different requirements [84,108,109], which can often only be met with a complex and diverse target species concept.…”

The golden native drone fly (Eristalinus punctulatus) is an effective hybrid carrot pollinator that lives within Australian crop agroecosystems

“…Flies are one of the most diverse and species-rich insect taxa found globally, accounting for every 1 in 10 species on Earth (Grimaldi & Engel, 2005;Wiegmann et al, 2011). While some flies are known to be pest insects, many are beneficial and play important roles in ecosystems as pollinators, predators and nutrient cyclers (Davis, Bickel, et al, 2023;Rader et al, 2020). Pollinating flies visit more than 100 cultivated cropping systems and over 550 wild plant species as adults (Larson et al, 2001), and this has led them to be the second most important pollinator taxon behind bees (Rader et al, 2016(Rader et al, , 2020.…”

“…Flies are important taxa to support within agroecosystems, as natural populations of beneficial flies can provide critical ecosystem services to farm landscapes (Fijen et al., 2022; Orford et al., 2015); however, it is unlikely that current management schemes designed to support pollinators on farms are successfully benefitting fly reproduction and development (Davis, Bickel, et al., 2023). This is because most pollinator management recommendations involve planting a diverse array of flowering plants within or near crop fields (Albrecht et al., 2020; Decourtye et al., 2010; Lowe et al., 2021).…”

“…For example, most crop flower‐visiting fly species (99%; n = 242) found to feed on floral resources (e.g. nectar and pollen) as adults did not feed on floral resources as immatures, instead the larvae of these species were mainly predators of small, soft bodied insects or detritivores (Davis, Bickel, et al., 2023). This suggests that crop‐pollinating flies need both floral and non‐floral resources to support their life cycle within agroecosystems, yet the non‐floral resource needs of crop‐pollinating flies is understudied (but see Davis, Bickel, et al., 2023; Davis, Schmidt, et al., 2023; Finch et al., 2023 for exceptions).…”