The effect of protective covers on pollinator health and pollination service delivery

Kendall, Liam K.; Evans, Lisa J.; Gee, Megan; Smith, Tobias J.; Gagić, Vesna; Lobaton, Juan David; Hall, Mark; Jones, Jeremy L.; Kirkland, Lindsay; Saunders, Manu E.; Sonter, Carolyn A.; Cutting, Brian T.; Parks, Sophie E.; Hogendoorn, Katja; Spurr, C; Gracie, AJ; Simpson, Melinda; Rader, Romina

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2021.107556

Cited by 30 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 112 publications

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“…This may be a consequence of the pool of species in the pollinator community, which is known to affect honeybee behaviour (Brittain, Williams, et al., 2013; Eeraerts, Smagghe, et al., 2020). Additionally, the use of polytunnels may have also influenced honeybee visitation rates (Hall et al., 2020; Kendall et al., 2021), since hives were deployed at the orchard perimeter and honeybees had to fly into the orchards. However, the time honeybees spent on a single flower was similar to Bakshi et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wild bees are less abundant but show better pollination behaviour for sweet cherry than managed pollinators

Mateos‐Fierro

Garratt

Fountain

et al. 2022

J Applied Entomology

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Pollinating insects provide pollination services to many crop species, including sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.), and this can be delivered by both managed and wild pollinators. Managed pollinators are often used to pollinate a range of fruit crops, but increasingly the role of wild insects is being studied. However, the importance of pollinator species depends on their relative abundance and pollination effectiveness, which depends on their foraging activity and their variability throughout the day. In this study, insect visitors of blossoms were observed in commercial sweet cherry orchards to explore abundance, diversity and pollination foraging behaviour of different insect pollinator groups throughout the day. A total of 1,174 pollinators from 31 different species were recorded visiting cherry blossoms over 2 years, of which 71.0% of total visits were by managed pollinators (western honeybee, Apis mellifera L. and buff‐tailed bumblebee, Bombus terrestris L.) compared to 29.0% by wild pollinators. On average, solitary bees visited a sweet cherry blossom for the longest duration (20.7 (±2.0 SE) seconds), whereas wild queen bumblebees visited the greatest number of flowers per minute (mean of 19.0 (±1.3 SE)). As both these pollinator groups contacted cherry stigmas more often and moved more frequently between tree rows than managed bees and hoverflies, they are more likely to facilitate cross‐pollination. The different pollinator groups also showed variation in behavioural parameters throughout the day, but less variation was recorded when all pollinator groups were considered altogether. This suggests diverse pollinator communities might be expected to provide a more stable pollination service to sweet cherry. This study demonstrates that whilst cherry blossoms were more frequently visited by managed pollinators, wild solitary bee and bumblebee behaviours are likely to be more effective at enhancing pollination in sweet cherry orchards, which, in turn, might lead to increased yields.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, other factors apart from diversity might also influence pollination behaviour (e.g. polytunnels; Kendall et al., 2021). Thus, further study would be needed to determine which management practices and landscape factors are important to promote species richness and diversity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wild bees are less abundant but show better pollination behaviour for sweet cherry than managed pollinators

Mateos‐Fierro

Garratt

Fountain

et al. 2022

J Applied Entomology

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“…(c) Supplemental feeding with artificial diets Supplemental feeding of carbohydrates or pollen substitutes is a common practice among beekeepers and an important tool in apiary management used to strengthen bee colonies and manipulate colony foraging behaviour to benefit crop production [109][110][111]. Besides the use of artificial diets for laboratory rearing, few studies have examined its role in the management of non-bee crop pollinators [25]. While supplemental feeding is known to support colony growth and health [109] and improve crop pollination in some circumstances [110,112], pollinator health and crop pollination outcomes have rarely been examined in tandem.…”

Section: (B) Managing Non-floral Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…High pollinator abundance can directly translate to increased flower visitation and yield [ 24 ], and in cropping systems, this is often achieved through the addition of managed taxa such as honeybees. However, achieving optimal pollination by increasing pollinator density alone may not translate to increased yields if the pollinators are ineffective pollinators of a target crop, prefer non-crop floral resources or perform poorly in the crop environment [ 11 , 24 , 25 ]. Conversely, extremely high visitation rates can cause damage to crop flowers with detrimental effects on yield [ 26 ].…”

Section: Pollinators and Optimal Crop Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To complement field studies, understanding how specific pollinators respond to the nutritional profiles of crops is also needed, yet collecting sufficient pollen for feeding experiments is a major challenge [ 75 ]. Incorporating live plants into enclosed feeding experiments may offer an alternative option and may also provide valuable insights into how pollinators respond to enclosed conditions, which are becoming increasingly common in crop production [ 25 ]. Portable remote monitoring tools are readily available for hives, allowing data collection in real time at low cost [ 123 ], opening the potential for broad scale studies linking environmental variables to colony dynamics.…”

Section: Merging Optimal Crop Production and Pollinator Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pollinator nutrition and its role in merging the dual objectives of pollinator health and optimal crop production

Jones

Rader

2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Bee and non-bee insect pollinators play an integral role in the quantity and quality of production for many food crops, yet there is growing evidence that nutritional challenges to pollinators in agricultural landscapes are an important factor in the reduction of pollinator populations worldwide. Schemes to enhance crop pollinator health have historically focused on floral resource plantings aimed at increasing pollinator abundance and diversity by providing more foraging opportunities for bees. These efforts have demonstrated that improvements in bee diversity and abundance are achievable; however, goals of increasing crop pollination outcomes via these interventions are not consistently met. To support pollinator health and crop pollination outcomes in tandem, habitat enhancements must be tailored to meet the life-history needs of specific crop pollinators, including non-bees. This will require greater understanding of the nutritional demands of these taxa together with the supply of floral and non-floral food resources and how these interact in cropping environments. Understanding the mechanisms underlying crop pollination and pollinator health in unison across a range of taxa is clearly a win–win for industry and conservation, yet achievement of these goals will require new knowledge and novel, targeted methods. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Natural processes influencing pollinator health: from chemistry to landscapes’.

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Polymer and photo‐selective covers on plant and fruit development: A review

Pandey,

Parks,

Thomas

2023

Agronomy Journal

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Growers have increasingly adopted protected cropping in tunnels or greenhouses to ensure sustainability and continuous crop productivity against a backdrop of climate change. The predominant types of covers used in controlled‐environment agriculture are polymer‐based shade nets or structures covered with polymer sheets. These have three main functions: (1) physical protection from birds, hail, and excessive radiation, (2) modification of the environment by controlling humidity, shade, and temperature, and (3) increasing the proportion of diffuse light. In order to address concerns regarding the amounts of useful light potentially blocked by these covers, researchers and growers have suggested several innovative solutions that involve altering the light received by plants. This includes supplementation of artificial illumination, filtering solar radiation with colored films, or altering the incident spectrum with spectral‐shifting covers containing light‐emitting fluorescent compounds embedded within a polymer matrix. In principle, any of these methods have the potential to selectively modify the spectrum of incident light and subsequently induce plant physiological responses, resulting in increased crop yield, improved fruit quality, and reduced susceptibility to pests and diseases. This review focuses on the benefits offered by passive covers in terms of their variable shading and light transmittance properties, and their effects on vegetative growth and fruit development in various crops. It is anticipated that through a better understanding of photo‐selective covers in protected cropping, primary producers will be better equipped to make informed decisions regarding their deployment and thereby achieve better yields and more nutritious produce from their crops.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

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The effect of protective covers on pollinator health and pollination service delivery

Cited by 30 publications

References 112 publications

Wild bees are less abundant but show better pollination behaviour for sweet cherry than managed pollinators

Wild bees are less abundant but show better pollination behaviour for sweet cherry than managed pollinators

Pollinator nutrition and its role in merging the dual objectives of pollinator health and optimal crop production

Polymer and photo‐selective covers on plant and fruit development: A review

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