Establishing Wildflower Pollinator Habitats in Agricultural Farmland to Provide Multiple Ecosystem Services

Sidhu, C. Sheena; Joshi, Neelendra K.

doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.00363

Cited by 38 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…As members of higher trophic levels, parasitoids are expected to respond more strongly to landscape context than their hosts (Thies et al 2003) since parasitoids with small foraging ranges and those that require alternative host and floral resources are filtered from agriculturally simplified landscapes (G amez-Viru es et al 2015). At smaller scales, it is possible that biological control services in simplified agricultural landscapes could be improved by the incorporation of hedgerows or flowering strips that provide increased floral diversity at the field scale (Blaauw andIsaacs 2015, Sidhu andJoshi 2016). Thus, our results represent an important contribution to an understanding of the landscape-mediated impacts on crop yield that will be essential to implementing effective policies that simultaneously conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Landscape simplification reduces classical biological control and crop yield

Grab

Danforth

Poveda

et al. 2018

Ecological Applications

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Agricultural intensification resulting in the simplification of agricultural landscapes is known to negatively impact the delivery of key ecosystem services such as the biological control of crop pests. Both conservation and classical biological control may be influenced by the landscape context in which they are deployed; yet studies examining the role of landscape structure in the establishment and success of introduced natural enemies and their interactions with native communities are lacking. In this study, we investigated the relationship between landscape simplification, classical and conservation biological control services and importantly, the outcome of these interactions for crop yield. We showed that agricultural simplification at the landscape scale is associated with an overall reduction in parasitism rates of crop pests. Additionally, only introduced parasitoids were identified, and no native parasitoids were found in crop habitat, irrespective of agricultural landscape simplification. Pest densities in the crop were lower in landscapes with greater proportions of semi-natural habitats. Furthermore, farms with less semi-natural cover in the landscape and consequently, higher pest numbers, had lower yields than farms in less agriculturally dominated landscapes. Our study demonstrates the importance of landscape scale agricultural simplification in mediating the success of biological control programs and highlights the potential risks to native natural enemies in classical biological control programs against native insects. Our results represent an important contribution to an understanding of the landscape-mediated impacts on crop yield that will be essential to implementing effective policies that simultaneously conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Landscape simplification reduces classical biological control and crop yield

Grab

Danforth

Poveda

et al. 2018

Ecological Applications

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“…Planting wildflower strips potentially increases the risk of favouring herbivore pests , but this could be minimised by including diverse perennial flowering plants and increasing the size of the plot. This way, more beetles, birds and other predators are also attracted and can aid with biological pest control (Blaauw & Isaacs 2012;Tschumi et al 2015;Westphal et al 2015;Morandin et al 2016;Sidhu & Joshi 2016).…”

Section: Crop Fieldsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The use of insecticides represents a hazard to pollinator health, diversity and abundance. However, the risk varies with the toxicity of the particular insecticide to different species and by the level of exposure according to management practice, and the phenology, behaviour and habitat use of foraging pollinators (Brittain & Potts 2011;Schreinemachers & Tipraqsa 2012;Godfray et al 2014Godfray et al , 2015van der Sluijs et al 2015;IPBES 2016). Aside from mortality, insecticides can elicit a range of sublethal effects on pollinators, such as physiological and behavioural changes (Godfray et al 2014(Godfray et al , 2015Pisa et al 2015).…”

Section: Insecticides and Herbicidesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological intensification to mitigate impacts of conventional intensive land use on pollinators and pollination

et al. 2017

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Worldwide, human appropriation of ecosystems is disrupting plant-pollinator communities and pollination function through habitat conversion and landscape homogenisation. Conversion to agriculture is destroying and degrading semi-natural ecosystems while conventional land-use intensification (e.g. industrial management of large-scale monocultures with high chemical inputs) homogenises landscape structure and quality. Together, these anthropogenic processes reduce the connectivity of populations and erode floral and nesting resources to undermine pollinator abundance and diversity, and ultimately pollination services. Ecological intensification of agriculture represents a strategic alternative to ameliorate these drivers of pollinator decline while supporting sustainable food production, by promoting biodiversity beneficial to agricultural production through management practices such as intercropping, crop rotations, farm-level diversification and reduced agrochemical use. We critically evaluate its potential to address and reverse the land use and management trends currently degrading pollinator communities and potentially causing widespread pollination deficits. We find that many of the practices that constitute ecological intensification can contribute to mitigating the drivers of pollinator decline. Our findings support ecological intensification as a solution to pollinator declines, and we discuss ways to promote it in agricultural policy and practice.

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“…In response to widespread declines in some wild bee species, many governments and intergovernmental agencies have instituted policies that subsidize establishment of pollinator habitat on farms (Dicks, Viana, et al, 2016;Dicks, Vaughn, & Lee-Mader, 2016;IPBES, 2016;Pollinator Health Task Force, 2016). Flowering habitat enhancements support wild bee communities by supplementing nutritional resources available throughout the season (Blaauw & Isaacs, 2014;Grab, Poveda, Danforth, & Loeb, 2018;Sidhu & Joshi, 2016;Vaudo et al, 2015;Williams et al, 2015). Ecological theory suggests that the effectiveness of on-farm habitat enhancements will vary depending on the surrounding landscape structure, an important caveat which is not always addressed in policy or land-management decisions (Grab et al, 2018;Tscharntke et al, 2005Tscharntke et al, , 2012.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat enhancements rescue bee body size from the negative effects of landscape simplification

Grab

Brokaw

Anderson

et al. 2019

Journal of Applied Ecology

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The negative effects of landscape simplification on bee communities are well documented. To reverse these effects, flowering habitat enhancements are designed to provide supplemental nutritional resources for wild bees and are particularly important when few resources are available in the surrounding landscape. Yet, it is not known whether or how habitat enhancements support bee populations under varying landscape contexts. Body size is a morphological trait that is strongly linked to foraging ability, immune function, and fitness in bees. Landscape simplification has been associated with size declines across bee taxa and smaller body size can be an early indicator of environmental stress. To determine whether the negative effects of landscape simplification on body size can be improved by adding floral resources to farm landscapes, we measured the body size of 10 wild bee species collected at 70 sites with or without habitat enhancements in Michigan and New York. Bees were collected at sites with varying amounts of agriculture in the surrounding landscape, allowing us to test whether morphological responses to enhancements are affected by landscape simplification. Half of the bee species measured exhibited declining body size across the landscape gradient. Among these species, declines were buffered by the presence of habitat enhancements suggesting this response is the result of improved nutrition, reduced need for long‐distance foraging, enhanced recruitment of larger individuals or a combination of these mechanisms. Declines in body size were strongest in both the smallest and the largest species. Large and medium sized species exhibited the greatest response to flowering habitat enhancements. Synthesis and applications. At sites with high agricultural cover, we observed intraspecific body size declines among many species; however, we did not observe decreased body size in any species at sites with a flowering habitat enhancement. Therefore, our findings suggest that the presence of flowering habitat enhancements can support wild bees experiencing stress from intensively managed agricultural landscapes across multiple cropping systems and regions.

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Establishing Wildflower Pollinator Habitats in Agricultural Farmland to Provide Multiple Ecosystem Services

Cited by 38 publications

References 49 publications

Landscape simplification reduces classical biological control and crop yield

Landscape simplification reduces classical biological control and crop yield

Ecological intensification to mitigate impacts of conventional intensive land use on pollinators and pollination

Habitat enhancements rescue bee body size from the negative effects of landscape simplification

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