Much more than bees—Wildflower plantings support highly diverse flower-visitor communities from complex to structurally simple agricultural landscapes

Summary1. We briefly review current understanding of wild pollinators and pollination services on farmlands. 2. We consider how concepts in plant ecology -community assembly and functional trait diversity -may be applied to create diverse, wild pollinator communities across scales in agroecosystems. 3. We also make recommendations for best practices to enhance pollination services and create more sustainable food production systems under changing environmental conditions, including creating greater landscape connectivity, embracing pollinator dynamics, and providing incentives and other motivations to support these practices. 4. Synthesis. We highlight the opportunity for agricultural lands to serve a dual role for both food production and pollinator conservation, and conclude by posing unanswered questions and top priorities for future studies.

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“…; Grass et al . ; Todd, Gardiner & Lindquist ), as well as those that are less common or more specialized (Russo et al . ).…”

Section: Consideration Of Functional Trait Diversity Of Plants and Pomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…flies, butterflies and beetles) to pollination services (Orford, Vaughan & Memmott ; Grass et al . ; Rader et al . ).…”

Section: Consideration Of Functional Trait Diversity Of Plants and Pomentioning

confidence: 99%

A dual role for farmlands: food security and pollinator conservation

2017

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“…fire and grazing) that are key to reinstating prairie forb biodiversity (Kurtz ). Although empirical assessments of restoration success have increased in recent years (Wortley et al ), the extent to which the reconstruction or restoration of plant communities can reinstate communities of flower visitors remains understudied (Grass et al ; Steiner et al ; Kaiser‐Bunbury et al ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Highly anthropogenically modified landscapes can limit the extent to which some flower visitors are able to disperse to focal sites (Dixon ; Menz et al ). Site‐scale forb diversity and abundance have also been shown to affect flower visitor diversity and abundance (Potts et al ; Hines & Hendrix ; Kwaiser & Hendrix ; but see Davis et al ; Grass et al ). Reconstructed prairies often have lower plant diversity than remnant prairies, and they may differ from remnants in plant community composition (Kindscher & Tieszen ; Sluis ; Middleton et al ; Carter & Blair ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flower visitor communities are similar on remnant and reconstructed tallgrass prairies despite forb community differences

Denning

Foster

2017

Restoration Ecology

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One common goal of habitat restoration and reconstruction is to reinstate the biodiversity found at intact reference sites. However, few researchers have examined whether these practices reinstate communities of flower‐visiting insects. This is unfortunate, as anthropogenically mediated declines in flower visitors, including bees (the primary pollinators for most terrestrial ecosystems), beetles, flies, and butterflies, have been reported worldwide. Biodiversity declines may be especially severe in North America's tallgrass prairie, a once‐vast grassland that has experienced severe destruction and degradation due to agricultural conversion. As such, we assessed the structure of forb and flower‐visiting insect communities as a whole and two subsets of the flower visitor community—bees and phytophagous beetles—across five tallgrass prairie remnants and five reconstructed prairies (former crop fields) in Kansas from 2013 to 2015. Remnant prairies had significantly higher forb diversity and differed significantly in forb composition, compared to reconstructed prairies. Despite the dissimilarities in forb community structure, there were no differences in flower visitor diversity or abundance between remnants and reconstructed prairies. However, when considered separately, bee communities exhibited significantly greater variability in composition on reconstructed prairies, likely due to the abundance of generalist bee species visiting non‐native legumes at two reconstructed prairies. Our work provides evidence that prairie habitat reconstruction is a valuable tool for reestablishing flower‐visiting insect communities and also emphasizes the considerable role that non‐native species may play in structuring grassland plant–bee interactions.

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“…Wildflower mixtures support pollinator species and many other flower-visiting species such as parasitic wasps, predatory hoverflies, and pollen beetles, which potentially provide pest control [111]. Organizing the harvest outside the breeding and rearing times supports birds and other potentially beneficial organisms [64].…”

Section: Pest and Weed Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supporting Agricultural Ecosystem Services through the Integration of Perennial Polycultures into Crop Rotations

et al. 2017

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This review analyzes the potential role and long-term effects of field perennial polycultures (mixtures) in agricultural systems, with the aim of reducing the trade-offs between provisioning and regulating ecosystem services. First, crop rotations are identified as a suitable tool for the assessment of the long-term effects of perennial polycultures on ecosystem services, which are not visible at the single-crop level. Second, the ability of perennial polycultures to support ecosystem services when used in crop rotations is quantified through eight agricultural ecosystem services. Legume-grass mixtures and wildflower mixtures are used as examples of perennial polycultures, and compared with silage maize as a typical crop for biomass production. Perennial polycultures enhance soil fertility, soil protection, climate regulation, pollination, pest and weed control, and landscape aesthetics compared with maize. They also score lower for biomass production compared with maize, which confirms the trade-off between provisioning and regulating ecosystem services. However, the additional positive factors provided by perennial polycultures, such as reduced costs for mineral fertilizer, pesticides, and soil tillage, and a significant preceding crop effect that increases the yields of subsequent crops, should be taken into account. However, a full assessment of agricultural ecosystem services requires a more holistic analysis that is beyond the capabilities of current frameworks.

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Much more than bees—Wildflower plantings support highly diverse flower-visitor communities from complex to structurally simple agricultural landscapes

Cited by 68 publications

References 37 publications

A dual role for farmlands: food security and pollinator conservation

A dual role for farmlands: food security and pollinator conservation

Flower visitor communities are similar on remnant and reconstructed tallgrass prairies despite forb community differences

Supporting Agricultural Ecosystem Services through the Integration of Perennial Polycultures into Crop Rotations

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