Habitat management on multiple spatial scales can enhance bee pollination and crop yield in tropical homegardens

Motzke, Iris; Klein, Alexandra‐Maria; Saleh, Shahabuddin; Wanger, Thomas Cherico; Tscharntke, Teja

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2016.03.001

Cited by 45 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Small, solitary bees have a foraging area ranging from 250 to 800 m and tend to live near cultivated fields. In contrast, larger bees have higher flight capacity and broader foraging areas (Gathmann and Tscharntke, 2002;Hoehn et al, 2008;Holzschuh et al, 2008;Motzke et al, 2016). Important features of most bee species of our list are poorly known, such as nesting and foraging behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High species richness of native pollinators in Brazilian tomato crops

et al. 2016

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Pollinators provide an essential service to natural ecosystems and agriculture. In tomatoes flowers, anthers are poricidal, pollen may drop from their pore when flowers are shaken by the wind. However, bees that vibrate these anthers increase pollen load on the stigma and in fruit production. The present study aimed to identify the pollinator richness of tomato flowers and investigate their morphological and functional traits related to the plant-pollinator interaction in plantations of Central Brazil. The time of anthesis, flower duration, and the number and viability of pollen grains and ovules were recorded. Floral visitors were observed and collected. Flower buds opened around 6h30 and closed around 18h00. They reopened on the following day at the same time in the morning, lasting on average 48 hours. The highest pollen availability occurred during the first hours of anthesis. Afterwards, the number of pollen grains declined, especially between 10h00 to 12h00, which is consistent with the pollinator visitation pattern. Forty bee species were found in the tomato fields, 30 of which were considered pollinators. We found that during the flowering period, plants offered an enormous amount of pollen to their visitors. These may explain the high richness and amount of bees that visit the tomato flowers in the study areas. The period of pollen availability and depletion throughout the day overlapped with the bees foraging period, suggesting that bees are highly effective in removing pollen grains from anthers. Many of these grains probably land on the stigma of the same flower, leading to self-pollination and subsequent fruit development. Native bees (Exomalopsis spp.) are effective pollinators of tomato flowers and are likely to contribute to increasing crop productivity. On the other hand, here tomato flowers offer large amounts of pollen resource to a high richness and amount of bees, showing a strong plant-pollinator interaction in the study agroecosystem.Keywords: agroecosystem, buzz pollination, Exomalopsis, poricidal anther, Solanum lycopersicum L. Alta riqueza de espécies de polinizadores nativos em plantações Brasileiras de tomateiro ResumoPolinizadores fornecer um serviço essencial para os ecossistemas naturais e para agricultura.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High species richness of native pollinators in Brazilian tomato crops

et al. 2016

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“…Thus, the farm at ∼60% of surrounding agricultural land was notably exceptional given that the non-agricultural components in that landscape were largely chicken broilers (i.e., a concentrated chicken feeding operations), largely paved and lacked vegetation, and a horse barn, neither agriculture nor housing development. While studies on the effect of landscape composition on bees are substantial (e.g., Kennedy et al, 2013;Motzke et al, 2016), in this study we treat the effect of landscape on the pollinator measurements with caution and caveats because of this potential limitation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On-Farm Diversification in an Agriculturally-Dominated Landscape Positively Influences Specialist Pollinators

Guzman

Chase

Kremen

2019

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Agricultural practices can either contribute to pollinator decline or provide opportunities to support pollinator communities. At the landscape-scale, agriculture can have negative impacts on pollinators, especially pollinators that specialize on limited floral or nesting resources. While increasing floral resources at the field-scale is positive for pollinator communities, little is known about how it affects specialist bees that depend on a specific pollen source (oligoleges). We studied pollinators on small-scale farms that contrasted in crop diversity (monocultures vs. polycultures), embedded in the intensively managed agriculture region of the San Joaquin Valley in California, to understand how wild bee communities and specialist bees would respond to field-scale diversification practices. We used squash (Cucurbita pepo) as our focal crop, because it is visited by both specialist pollinators, "squash bees" in the genera Peponapis and Xenoglossa, and by generalist bees like those in the genera Apis and Agapostemon. We hypothesized that there would be a greater number of squash bees on monoculture farms, which have abundant squash flowers, than on polyculture farms. Contrary to our predictions, we found that increasing the number of non-squash floral resources at the field-scale in agroecosystems supports a greater abundance of squash bees but has no effect on the diversity of bees visiting squash flowers. This pattern of increased abundance was consistent for other wild bees and the total number of bees (i.e., including honey bees), but not for honey bee abundance alone. Further, the abundance of pollinators increased or remained the same on polyculture farms throughout the morning while decreasing on monoculture farms, suggesting that as squash flowers start to close in midmorning, bees on the monocultures go elsewhere because no other floral resources co-occur. However, they remain on the polycultures where other resources co-occur. Thus, on-farm diversification may be an important refuge for both specialist bees and other pollinator species that are vulnerable to floral resource simplification as a result of development, especially through monoculture agriculture.

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“…Seven wards were randomly selected using Google earth images to avoid bias to specific areas. Five habitat types-(natural woodlots, pastures, homestead, fields, and gardens) with a minimum distance of 2km apart (average foraging distance of bees) (Motzke et al, 2016) (Figure 2)-were randomly selected in each ward. Each habitat type had a minimum size of 2 km 2 , except for gardens that were mostly restricted along rivers or streams.…”

Section: Sampling Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of diversity and community structure of bees in an agroecological region of Zimbabwe

Tarakini

Chemura

Tarakini

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Worldwide bees provide an important ecosystem service of plant pollination. Climate change and land‐use changes are among drivers threatening bee survival with mounting evidence of species decline and extinction. In developing countries, rural areas constitute a significant proportion of the country's land, but information is lacking on how different habitat types and weather patterns in these areas influence bee populations. This study investigated how weather variables and habitat‐related factors influence the abundance, diversity, and distribution of bees across seasons in a farming rural area of Zimbabwe. Bees were systematically sampled in five habitat types (natural woodlots, pastures, homesteads, fields, and gardens) recording ground cover, grass height, flower abundance and types, tree abundance and recorded elevation, temperature, light intensity, wind speed, wind direction, and humidity. Zero‐inflated models, censored regression models, and PCAs were used to understand the influence of explanatory variables on bee community composition, abundance, and diversity. Bee abundance was positively influenced by the number of plant species in flower ( p < .0001). Bee abundance increased with increasing temperatures up to 28.5°C, but beyond this, temperature was negatively associated with bee abundance. Increasing wind speeds marginally decreased probability of finding bees. Bee diversity was highest in fields, homesteads, and natural woodlots compared with other habitats, and the contributions of the genus Apis were disproportionately high across all habitats. The genus Megachile was mostly associated with homesteads, while Nomia was associated with grasslands. Synthesis and applications. Our study suggests that some bee species could become more proliferous in certain habitats, thus compromising diversity and consequently ecosystem services. These results highlight the importance of setting aside bee‐friendly habitats that can be refuge sites for species susceptible to land‐use changes.

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Habitat management on multiple spatial scales can enhance bee pollination and crop yield in tropical homegardens

Cited by 45 publications

References 56 publications

High species richness of native pollinators in Brazilian tomato crops

High species richness of native pollinators in Brazilian tomato crops

On-Farm Diversification in an Agriculturally-Dominated Landscape Positively Influences Specialist Pollinators

Drivers of diversity and community structure of bees in an agroecological region of Zimbabwe

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