Effects of temporal floral resource availability and non-crop habitats on broad bean pollination

Eckerter, Philipp W.; Albrecht, Matthias; Bertrand, Colette; Gobet, Erika; Herzog, Felix; Pfister, Sonja C.; Tinner, Willy; Entling, Martin H. (2022). Effects of temporal floral resource availability and non-crop habitats on broad bean pollination. Landscape ecology, 37(6), pp. 1573-1586. Springer Netherlands 10.1007/s10980-022-01448-2

Preview

Text 2022_LandscapeEcol.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY). Download (840kB) | Preview

Context
Flowering plants can enhance wild insect populations and their pollination services to crops in agricultural landscapes, especially when they flower before the focal crop. However, characterizing the temporal availability of specific floral resources is a challenge.

Objectives
Developing an index for the availability of floral resources at the landscape scale according to the specific use by a pollinator. Investigating whether detailed and temporally-resolved floral resource maps predict pollination success of broad bean better than land cover maps.

Methods
We mapped plant species used as pollen source by bumblebees in 24 agricultural landscapes and developed an index of floral resource availability for different times of the flowering season. To measure pollination success, patches of broad bean (Vicia faba), a plant typically pollinated by bumblebees, were exposed in the center of selected landscapes.

Results
Higher floral resource availability before bean flowering led to enhanced seed set. Floral resource availability synchronous to broad bean flowering had no effect. Seed set was somewhat better explained by land cover maps than by floral resource availability, increasing with urban area and declining with the cover of arable land.

Conclusions
The timing of alternative floral resource availability is important for crop pollination. The higher explanation of pollination success by land cover maps than by floral resource availability indicates that additional factors such as habitat disturbance and nesting sites play a role in pollination. Enhancing non-crop woody plants in agricultural landscapes as pollen sources may ensure higher levels of crop pollination by wild pollinators such as bumblebees.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

76 since deposited on 19 May 2022
36 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item