Generalist solitary ground-nesting bees dominate diversity survey in intensively managed agricultural land
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17161/jom.v0i82.7057Abstract
In Western Europe agricultural management was intensified in the period 1950–2010 with negative consequences for ecosystem services, such as pollination, especially in countries with a large proportion of agriculture. Farmland represents 66% of the Danish landscape, but little is known about wild bees despite that 75% of the country’s wild and cultivated plant species depend on insect pollination. Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) gains considerable benefits from insect pollination and abundance, species richness and functional diversity, are all important elements. We surveyed the diversity of wild bees during strawberry flowering by sampling bees with pan-traps along permanent margins bordering strawberry fields on six organic and six conventional farms in eastern Denmark and compared the results of the survey with that of sampling site farming practice and field margin forage availability. The majority of bees sampled were polylectic solitary ground-nesting bees known to forage on species of the rose family. This indicates that these bee species are potential pollinators of strawberries, and the low number of specialized bees suggests that the bee community was affected by the simplified landscapes. Temporal trends in abundance, species richness, and body size of the bees, suggest that the functional diversity of pollinator assemblages available differed for early- and late-flowering strawberries. Fewer plants species and a lower plant cover were found in the margins of sprayed fields. Abundance and diversity of the wild bees were neither correlated with the use of herbicides and insecticides, nor with plant species richness or flowering plant cover.
Metrics
References
Ahrenfeldt E. J., Klatt B., Arildsen J., Trandem N., Andersson G., Tscharntke T., Smith H., Sigsgaard L. 2015. Pollinator communities in strawberry crops–variation at multiple spatial scales. Bulletin of Entomological Research 105: 497-506.
Aude E., Tybirk K., Bruus Pedersen M. 2003. Vegetation diversity of conventional and organic hedgerows in Denmark. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 99: 135-147.
Aude E., Tybirk K., Michelsen A., Ejrnµs R., Hald A. B., Mark S. 2004. Conservation value of the herbaceous vegetation in hedgerows-does organic farming make a difference? Biological Conservation 118: 467-478.
Barrow D. & Pickard R. 1984. Size?related selection of food plants by bumblebees. Ecological Entomology 9: 369-373.
Benton T. G., Vickery J. A., Wilson J. D. 2003. Farmland biodiversity: Is habitat heterogeneity the key? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 18: 182-188.
Bianchi F., Booij C. J. H., Tscharntke T. 2006. Sustainable pest regulation in agricultural landscapes: A review on landscape composition, biodiversity and natural pest control. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273:1715.
Calabuig I. 2000. Solitary Bees and Bumblebees in a Danish Agricultural Landscape. University of Copenhagen; Copenhagen, DK.
Carvell C., Meek W. R., Pywell R. F., Goulson D., Nowakowski M. 2007. Comparing the efficacy of agri?environment schemes to enhance bumble bee abundance and diversity on arable field margins. Journal of Applied Ecology 44: 29-40.
Chagnon M., Ingras J., Oliveira D. D. E. 1993. Complementary aspects of strawberry pollination by honey and Indigenous bees (Hymenoptera). Journal of Economic Entomology 86: 416-420.
Chagnon M., Gingras J., Oliveira D. D. E. 1989. Effect of honey bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) visits on the pollination rate of strawberries. Journal of Economic Entomology 82: 1350-1353.
Chen W., An J., Dong J., Ding K., Gao S. 2011. Flower-visiting behavior and pollination ecology of different bee species on greenhouse strawberry. Chinese Journal of Ecology 30: 290-296.
Dupont Y. L., Damgaard C., Simonsen V. 2011. Quantitative historical change in bumblebee (Bombus spp.) assemblages of red clover fields. PloS One 6: e25172.
Ekroos J., Piha M., Tiainen J. 2008. Role of organic and conventional field boundaries on boreal bumblebees and butterflies. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 124: 155-159.
Gabriel D., Sait S. M., Hodgson J. A., Schmutz U., Kunin W. E., Benton T. G. 2010. Scale matters: The impact of organic farming on biodiversity at different spatial scales. Ecological Letters 13: 858-869.
Garibaldi L. A., Steffan-Dewenter I., Winfree R., Aizen M. A., Bommarco R., Cunningham S. A., Kremen C., Carvalheiro L.
G., Harder L. D.& other authors. 2013. Wild pollinators enhance fruit set of crops regardless of honey bee abundance. Science 339: 1608-1611.
Gathmann A. & Tscharntke T. 2002. Foraging ranges of solitary bees. Journal of Animal Ecology 71: 757-764.
Hannon L. E. & Sisk T. D. 2009. Hedgerows in an agri-natural landscape: Potential habitat value for native bees. Biological Conservation 142: 2140-2154.
Heinrich B. 2004. Bumblebee economics. 2nd Edition]. Harvard University Press. 256 pp.
Heinrich B. & Heinrich M. J. E. 1983. Size and caste in temperature regulation by bumblebees. Physiological Zoology, 552-562.
Henriksen C. I. & Langer V. 2013. Road verges and winter wheat fields as resources for wild bees in agricultural landscapes. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 173: 66-71.
Hoehn P., Tscharntke T., Tylianakis J. M., Steffan-Dewenter I. 2008. Functional group diversity of bee pollinators increases crop yield. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 275: 2283.
Holm S. N. 1982. Insektbestøvning af kulturplanter. Compendium KVL. DK.
Holzschuh A., Steffan Dewenter I., Tscharntke T. 2008. Agricultural landscapes with organic crops support higher pollinator diversity. Oikos 117: 354-361.
Karanja R. H. N., Njoroge G. N., Gikungu M. W., Newton L. E. 2010. Bee interactions with wild flora around organic and conventional coffee farms in kiambu district, central. Journal of Pollination Ecology 2: 7-12.
Kells A. R. & Goulson D. 2003. Preferred nesting sites of bumblebee queens (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in agroecosystems in the UK. Biol Conserv 109: 165-174.
Kells A. R., Holland J. M., Goulson D. 2001. The value of uncropped field margins for foraging bumblebees. Journal of Insect Conservation 5: 283-291.
Klatt B. K., Holzschuh A., Westphal C., Clough Y., Smit I., Pawelzik E., Tscharntke T. 2014. Bee pollination improves crop quality, shelf life and commercial value. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281: 20132440.
Mandelik Y., Winfree R., Neeson T., Kremen C. 2012. Complementary habitat use by wild bees in agro-natural landscapes. Ecological Applications 22: 1535-1546.
Morandin L. A. & Kremen C. 2013. Hedgerow restoration promotes pollinator populations and exports native bees to adjacent fields. Ecological Applications 23: 829-839.
Norton L., Johnson P., Joys A., Stuart R., Chamberlain D., Feber R., Firbank L., Manley W., Wolfe M., Hart B. 2009. Consequences of organic and non-organic farming practices for field, farm and landscape complexity. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 129: 221-227.
Nye W. P. & Anderson J. 1974. Insect pollinators frequenting strawberry blossoms and the effect of honey bees on yield and fruit quality. Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science 99: 40-44.
Obrist M. & Duelli P. 2010. Rapid biodiversity assessment of arthropods for monitoring average local species richness and related ecosystem services. Biodiversity and Conservation 19: 2201-2220.
Osgathorpe L. M., Park K., Goulson D. 2012. The use of off-farm habitats by foraging bumblebees in agricultural landscapes: Implications for conservation management. Apidologie 43: 113-127.
Petersen S., Axelsen J. A., Tybirk K., Aude E., Vestergaard P. 2006. Effects of organic farming on field boundary vegetation in Denmark. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 113: 302-306.
Prip C., Wind P., Joergensen H. 1996. Biological diversity in Denmark: Status and strategy. Ministry of Environment and Energy, Danish Forest and Nature Agency.
R Development Core Team. 2012. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
http://www.R-project.org/ . ISBN 3-900051-07-0.
Slaa E. J., Chaves L. A. S., Malagodi-Braga K. S., Hofstede F. E. 2006. Stingless bees in applied pollination: Practice and perspectives. Apidologie 37, 293-315.
Statistics Denmark. 2014. Cultivated area by region, unit and crop.
Steffan-Dewenter I., Klein A., Gaebele V., Alfert T., Tscharntke T. (2006). Bee diversity and plant–pollinator interactions in fragmented landscapes. Specialization and Generalization in Plant-Pollinator Interactions, 387-410.
Steffan-Dewenter I. & Tscharntke T. 1999. Effects of habitat isolation on pollinator communities and seed set. Oecologia 121: 432-440.
Stone G. & Willmer P. 1989. Warm-up rates and body temperatures in bees: The importance of body size, thermal regime and phylogeny. Journal of Experimental Biology 147: 303.
Stout J. C. 2000. Does size matter? Bumblebee behaviour and the pollination of cytisus scoparius L. (fabaceae). Apidologie 31: 129-140.
Svensson B., Lagerlöf J., G Svensson B. 2000. Habitat preferences of nest-seeking bumble bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in an agricultural landscape. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 77: 247-255.
Walther?Hellwig K. & Frankl R. 2000. Foraging habitats and foraging distances of bumblebees, bombus spp.(hym., apidae), in an agricultural landscape. Journal of Applied Entomology 124: 299-306.
Winfree R., Williams N. M., Gaines H., Ascher J. S., Kremen C. 2008. Wild bee pollinators provide the majority of crop visitation across land use gradients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, USA. Journal of Applied Ecology 45: 793-802.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright for articles published in Journal of Melittology is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution and permission of the authors, in educational and other non-commercial settings.
