Raderschall, Chloë and Bommarco, Riccardo and Lindström, Sandra A.M. and Lundin, Ola
(2021).
Landscape crop diversity and semi-natural habitat affect crop pollinators, pollination benefit and yield.
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. 306
, 107189
[Research article]
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Abstract
Agricultural intensification has led to the conversion of natural habitats into agricultural fields, increased field sizes and simplified crop rotations. The resulting homogenisation of the landscape has led to a decline in bees, which provide an essential ecosystem service to agriculture. It has been suggested that an increase in landscape crop diversity supports higher biodiversity by providing more diverse and continuous resources without taking land out of agricultural production. We selected 14 faba bean (Vicia faba minor L.) fields in southern Sweden along uncorrelated gradients of landscape crop diversity and proportion of semi-natural habitat within 1.5 km radii surrounding focal fields. Pollinator surveys and pollinator exclusion experiments were conducted to assess whether landscape crop diversity affected pollinator densities, pollinator foraging behaviour (i.e. legitimate flower visitation, nectar robbing or extra-floral nectary visitation), pollination and yield formation. Landscape crop diversity enhanced bumble bee densities. Insect-pollinated faba bean plants produced, on average, 27 % higher bean weight per plant than bagged plants and the insect pollination benefit decreased with increasing semi-natural habitat cover. Bumble bee and honey bee densities, the proportion of nectar robbing bees as well as faba bean yield increased with increasing proportion of semi-natural habitat. Pollinator densities were not the driver of high yields associated with higher proportions of semi-natural habitat because the observed yield increase was unrelated to pollinator densities and driven by bagged plants that were excluded from pollinator visits. Insect pollination, however, clearly decreased the yield gap associated with low proportions of semi natural habitat in the landscape. Our results highlight that agri-environmental policies should promote the retention of existing semi-natural habitats and encourage landscape crop diversity to provide pollinators with sufficient food and nesting resources.
Authors/Creators: | Raderschall, Chloë and Bommarco, Riccardo and Lindström, Sandra A.M. and Lundin, Ola | ||||||
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Title: | Landscape crop diversity and semi-natural habitat affect crop pollinators, pollination benefit and yield | ||||||
Series Name/Journal: | Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment | ||||||
Year of publishing : | 2021 | ||||||
Volume: | 306 | ||||||
Article number: | 107189 | ||||||
Number of Pages: | 10 | ||||||
Publisher: | ELSEVIER | ||||||
ISSN: | 0167-8809 | ||||||
Language: | English | ||||||
Publication Type: | Research article | ||||||
Article category: | Scientific peer reviewed | ||||||
Version: | Published version | ||||||
Copyright: | Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 | ||||||
Full Text Status: | Public | ||||||
Subjects: | (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 4 Agricultural Sciences > 401 Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries > Agricultural Science | ||||||
Keywords: | Landscape crop diversity, Pollinators, Pollination, Faba beans, Bumble bee, Semi-natural habitat, Ecological intensification | ||||||
URN:NBN: | urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-110048 | ||||||
Permanent URL: | http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-110048 | ||||||
Additional ID: |
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ID Code: | 21368 | ||||||
Faculty: | NJ - Fakulteten för naturresurser och jordbruksvetenskap | ||||||
Department: | (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Ecology (S) > Dept. of Ecology | ||||||
Deposited By: | SLUpub Connector | ||||||
Deposited On: | 20 Jan 2021 15:43 | ||||||
Metadata Last Modified: | 20 Jan 2021 15:51 |
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