Pollination deficit in open-field tomato crops (<i>Solanum lycopersicum</i> L., Solanaceae) in Rio de Janeiro state, Southeast Brazil

Abstract

More than 70% of world’s crops benefit from biotic pollination, and bees are their main pollinators. Despite the fact that some of these insects have been broadly studied, understanding the interactions between plant crops and their pollinators with a local scale approach is necessary when aiming to apply proper protective and management measures to pollinators and their respective crops. In this context, we analyzed the pollination status of open-field tomato crops (Solanum lycopersicum L.), regarding fruit-set, visitation rate and the quality of fruits. We recorded the formation of fruits through spontaneous self-pollination and open-pollination, and the occurrence of pollinators in 24 areas of open-field tomato crops. We performed experiments of apomixis, spontaneous self-pollination, manual cross pollination and supplemental cross pollination (simulating the pollinator behavior) in a greenhouse. The fruit quality was evaluated according to circumference, weight, volume and number of seeds. Higher production of fruits after open-pollination compared to spontaneous self-pollination indicates the importance of pollinators to increment productivity of S. lycopersicum in the study area. The circumference and the number of seeds from tomatoes of the greenhouse plantation did not differ between spontaneous self-pollination and the manual cross pollination. In the open-field crops the number of seeds was higher for fruits resulting from open-pollination. Our results indicate that the importance of bees is mainly related to the increase in fruit production, thus incrementing the productivity of tomato crops.production, thus incrementing the productivity of tomato crops.

Bee Community in Open-Field Tomato Crop and Pollination Effect by Wild Bees on the Fruit Production

“…The high abundance Exomalopsis analis and its occurrence in all sites, allied with its sonication behavior, indicate that this species is an important pollinator of the tomato. This species was also the most abundant in other studies on community of bees in tomato fields of Goiás, Rio de Janeiro and Triângulo Mineiro (Silva-Neto et al, 2013;Deprá et al, 2014;Santos et al, 2014), reinforcing its importance for the tomato crop. The high numbers of honeybee individuals may be related to characteristics of this species such as nests with thousands of individuals and the ability to trace and recruit nestmates to many food sources through a sophisticated communication and labor system division.…”

“…Conditions such as bare ground for nesting (Potts et al, 2005) and food sources in cultivated areas (Blitzer et al, 2012;Montero-Castaño et al, 2016) can support higher species numbers. This pattern was common in studies on bee fauna in tomato crop with Apidae being dominant (Silva-Neto et al, 2013;Deprá et al, 2014;Santos et al, 2014).…”

“…Pollen release depends on vibration, which is known as buzz pollination (De Luca & Vallejo-Marin, 2013). Despite being a self-compatible plant, pollination by bees has proven to increase tomato yield Deprá et al, 2014;Strange, 2015).…”

Influence of landscape context on the abundance of native bee pollinators in tomato crops in Central Brazil

“…The main tomato cultivars studied here were 'Italian' and 'Dominador'. Although these commercial varieties of tomato are self-compatible, their flowers depend on the visit of buzzing bees to improve the quality and quantity of fruits and seeds (McGregor 1976;Silva-Neto et al 2013;Deprá et al 2014).…”

Spontaneous outcrossing in tomato depends on cultivar and environment and varies between individual flowers

“…Honey bees visit tomato flowers in greenhouses when they have no choice, but tomato flowers outdoors are rarely visited (Free, ). Deprá, Girondi Delaqua, Freitas, and Gaglianone () observed that bees visited tomato flowers more frequently than other insects did. Cross‐pollination is apparently largely resulting from buzz pollination by native pollinators (De Melo e Silva Neto et al., ).…”