The intertwined effects of natural vegetation, local flower community, and pollinator diversity on the production of almond trees

Alomar, David; González‐Estévez, Miguel A.; Traveset, Anna; Lázaro, Amparo

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2018.05.004

Cited by 41 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Although our data did not show strong evidence of differences among land-condition types and between playas and uplands, it did indicate that reference and restored sites support greater richness of hymenopterans, and playas are likely providing additional habitat resources for dipterans and additional floral resources for both orders. This is consistent with research that has demonstrated the importance of natural areas for wild bees (Garibaldi et al 2011;Smith et al 2013;Alomar, 2018) and dipterans (Kearns 2001). Playas in the RWB are the primary remaining natural habitats available to provide necessary resources to pollinators to complete their life history.…”

Section: Recommendationssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Although the domestic honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) is the most important commercial pollinator (Calderone 2012b), research has documented that wild pollinators are more effective pollinators of several important crops such as sweet cherry (Holzschuh et al 2012;Eeraerts et al 2017), almonds (Alomar et al 2018), apples (Mallinger and Gratton 2015), and lowbush blueberries (McKechnie et al 2017). Furthermore, honeybee pollination is often supplementary to that of wild pollinators (Garibaldi et al 2013;Eeraerts et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wild pollinators need abundant and diverse floral resources (Kwaiser and Hendrix 2007;Fründ et al 2010), and nesting habitat that includes areas of bare soil for ground-nesting bees and pithy material for stem nesters (Potts et al 2005;Black et al 2011). Proximity to natural or semi-natural areas has shown to increase abundance and species richness of wild pollinators (Garibaldi, 2011;Smith et al 2013;Alomar, 2018). Native landscapes historically provided a diversity of floral resources that sustained diverse mutualistic pollinator-plant relationships (Potts et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Wetland Presence and Upland Land Use on Wild Hymenopteran and Dipteran Pollinators in the Rainwater Basin of Nebraska, USA

Begosh

Smith

Park³

et al. 2019

Wetlands

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Pollination is an ecosystem service that is in jeopardy globally. Decreasing trends in wild pollinator populations are primarily attributed to habitat loss and degradation. These concerns are especially apparent in the Rainwater Basin of Nebraska, USA where more than 90% of the land has been cultivated and 90% of the wetlands have been lost. We compared hymenopteran and dipteran pollinator abundance, richness, and diversity in 28 wetlands and their adjacent uplands within 3 dominant land-condition types: cropped, restored, and reference state. We used vane traps to capture local pollinator insects and sweep nets to collect insect pollinators on flowers. Vane-trap captures revealed a greater abundance, richness, and diversity of hymenopteran pollinators in uplands as compared to wetlands over the entire growing season in all land-condition types. However, net collections showed that hymenopterans foraged more in wetlands than in uplands, especially in restored wetlands. The exception was September when hymenopterans were captured in uplands more than wetlands while feeding on late season forbs. Dipteran vane-trap and sweepnet captures primarily consisted of hoverflies (Syrphidae). Hoverflies were more abundant in wetlands than uplands. All pollinators used both wetlands and uplands for resources. Thus, insect-pollinator conservation can be enhanced by promoting native forb communities and pollinator habitat through wetland restoration and the planting of buffer strips.

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Section: Recommendationssupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Wetland Presence and Upland Land Use on Wild Hymenopteran and Dipteran Pollinators in the Rainwater Basin of Nebraska, USA

Begosh

Smith

Park³

et al. 2019

Wetlands

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“…Opinion on this issue was clearly divided. Based on the literature, the majority of the research on increasing floral resources in or around fruit orchards by means of an extensive mowing regime, flower strips or hedgerows has a positive effect on both insect predators [28,29] and pollinating insects [10,25,26,[30][31][32]. Nevertheless, some studies have concluded that there is no positive effect on insect pollinators in fruit orchards during full bloom [11,18].…”

Section: Topicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rollin and Garibaldi [ 9 ] found that guidelines for the recommended density of honey bee hives for different crops do not accurately predict the delivered crop pollination. As the contribution of wild pollinators is significant in multiple orchard crops, for example, almond [ 10 ], apple [ 11 ], pear [ 12 ], raspberry [ 13 ] and sweet cherry [ 14 ], the management of naturally occurring pollinating insects in fruit orchards needs to be explored further. However, little is known about growers’ knowledge with regard to pollinating insects and about the current practices they apply to promote this pollination service in agricultural crops [ 15 , 16 , 17 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Growers’ Perspective on Crop Pollination and Measures to Manage the Pollination Service of Wild Pollinators in Sweet Cherry Cultivation

Eeraerts

Borremans²,

Smagghe

et al. 2020

Insects

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Recent declines in insect pollinators and the increasing dependence on insect pollination in agriculture present major challenges to ensuring future food production. As part of the effort to deal with this challenge, there is a pressing need to understand growers’ perceptions with regard to pollinator diversity and crop pollination management. At present, many growers are dependent on domesticated honey bees (Apis mellifera), however, targeted management strategies involving naturally occurring pollinator species might be necessary to ensure future crop pollination. In this study we used semi-structured interviews to explore growers’ knowledge about crop pollination and current practices to manage insect pollination in sweet cherry cultivation. Our findings suggest that growers have a clear understanding of the importance of pollination and its determining factors. However, with respect to their current pollination management, growers depend mainly on honey bees and only apply measures to enhance wild pollinator communities to a limited extent. Our study highlights the gap between the growers’ perception of the contribution of wild pollinators to crop pollination, and their efforts to manage these species. We conclude that this is due to a lack of communication of recent scientific findings on the contribution of pollinating insects to crop pollination through the information channels that are being used by growers today. It is therefore crucial that scientists, government and other stakeholders work together with growers and communicate scientific evidence as well as practical guidelines to growers.

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Disentangling direct and indirect effects of habitat fragmentation on wild plants' pollinator visits and seed production

Lázaro

Fuster

Alomar

et al. 2020

Ecological Applications

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Habitat fragmentation threatens plant and pollinator communities, as well as their interactions. However, the effects of landscape fragmentation on the pollination of wild plant species are not well understood yet, partly because there are many correlated features in fragmented landscapes (e.g., decreased patch size, increased isolation, and patch complexity) whose influences are difficult to disentangle. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we assessed the direct and indirect effects of landscape fragmentation (patch size, isolation and complexity, percentage of surrounding land in forest) on the abundance, functional‐group richness, and evenness of pollinators of 24 habitat fragments within an agricultural landscape in Southern Norway. In addition, we studied how these variables affected visitation rates (visits per flower) and seed production (seed set, seed mass) in the four most abundant plant species in the area. Flower abundance was higher in larger and complex patches and decreased with the percentage of forest in the surroundings, while flower richness increased with patch complexity. We found a direct negative relationship between patch complexity and the overall number of pollinator visits that the habitat fragments received. Apart from this direct landscape effect, pollinator visits were mostly affected by the floral communities, with overall flower abundance and richness increasing both total number of pollinator visits and pollinator‐group richness, and flower richness having an additional negative influence on pollinator‐group evenness. Interestingly, we did not find any direct link between visitation rates and reproductive success for any of the study plant species. Instead, several landscape variables directly affected species seed production, although the effects of landscape on seed production were highly species specific. Patch complexity had a negative effect on seed production in two of the four focal species, while other components of the landscape had species‐specific effects. Increasing fragmentation of agricultural landscapes affects pollination interactions at the community level and the reproduction of wild plants. However, understanding the effects of fragmentation on seed production requires going beyond estimating visitation rates, since landscape effects on plant reproduction are not always related to overall interaction frequencies.

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The intertwined effects of natural vegetation, local flower community, and pollinator diversity on the production of almond trees

Cited by 41 publications

References 69 publications

Effects of Wetland Presence and Upland Land Use on Wild Hymenopteran and Dipteran Pollinators in the Rainwater Basin of Nebraska, USA

Effects of Wetland Presence and Upland Land Use on Wild Hymenopteran and Dipteran Pollinators in the Rainwater Basin of Nebraska, USA

A Growers’ Perspective on Crop Pollination and Measures to Manage the Pollination Service of Wild Pollinators in Sweet Cherry Cultivation

Disentangling direct and indirect effects of habitat fragmentation on wild plants' pollinator visits and seed production

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