Spillover of functionally important organisms between managed and natural habitats

Blitzer, Eleanor J.; Dormann, Carsten F.; Holzschuh, Andrea; Klein, Alexandra‐Maria; Rand, Tatyana A.; Tscharntke, Teja

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2011.09.005

Cited by 483 publications

(393 citation statements)

References 114 publications

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“…Blitzer et al. (2012) highlighted that spillover from natural to managed habitats is more likely to occur in small‐scale heterogeneous agricultural areas with integrated crop and noncrop ecosystems as it is to be found in Burkina Faso. Agricultural areas cannot only serve as important food resources for bees but at the same time economically benefit from pollination.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of human disturbance on bee pollinator communities in savanna and agricultural sites in Burkina Faso, West Africa

Stein

Stenchly

Coulibaly

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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All over the world, pollinators are threatened by land‐use change involving degradation of seminatural habitats or conversion into agricultural land. Such disturbance often leads to lowered pollinator abundance and/or diversity, which might reduce crop yield in adjacent agricultural areas. For West Africa, changes in bee communities across disturbance gradients from savanna to agricultural land are mainly unknown. In this study, we monitored for the impact of human disturbance on bee communities in savanna and crop fields. We chose three savanna areas of varying disturbance intensity (low, medium, and high) in the South Sudanian zone of Burkina Faso, based on land‐use/land cover data via Landsat images, and selected nearby cotton and sesame fields. During 21 months covering two rainy and two dry seasons in 2014 and 2015, we captured bees using pan traps. Spatial and temporal patterns of bee species abundance, richness, evenness and community structure were assessed. In total, 35,469 bee specimens were caught on 12 savanna sites and 22 fields, comprising 97 species of 32 genera. Bee abundance was highest at intermediate disturbance in the rainy season. Species richness and evenness did not differ significantly. Bee communities at medium and highly disturbed savanna sites comprised only subsets of those at low disturbed sites. An across‐habitat spillover of bees (mostly abundant social bee species) from savanna into crop fields was observed during the rainy season when crops are mass‐flowering, whereas most savanna plants are not in bloom. Despite disturbance intensification, our findings suggest that wild bee communities can persist in anthropogenic landscapes and that some species even benefitted disproportionally. West African areas of crop production such as for cotton and sesame may serve as important food resources for bee species in times when resources in the savanna are scarce and receive at the same time considerable pollination service.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of human disturbance on bee pollinator communities in savanna and agricultural sites in Burkina Faso, West Africa

Stein

Stenchly

Coulibaly

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Besides the positive effects of natural and semi-natural habitats, these habitats might also promote organisms that influence crop production negatively, either directly by consuming parts or whole crop plants or indirectly by transmitting diseases (Dunn, 2010;Keesing et al, 2010;Blitzer et al, 2012). Insect pests are well known to negatively influence crop production (Oerke, 2005;Eilers and Klein, 2009;Cini et al, 2012;El-Wakeil and Volkmar, 2012) but seed or fruit predation by vertebrates can also lead to losses in crop growth and production (Moran and Keidar, 1993;Ahmad et al, 2011;De Mey et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High trees increase sunflower seed predation by birds in an agricultural landscape of Israel

Schäckermann

Weiss²,

Wehrden

et al. 2014

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Natural habitats in agricultural landscapes promote agro-ecosystem services but little is known about negative effects (dis-services) derived by natural habitats such as crop seed predation. Birds are important seed predators and use high landscape structures to perch and hide. High trees in agricultural landscapes may therefore drive seed predation. We examined if the presence, the distance and the percentages of high trees (tree height >5 m) and the percentages of natural habitat surrounding sunflower fields, increased seed predation by birds in Israel. At the field scale, we assessed seed predation across a sample grid of an entire field. At the landscape scale, we assessed seed predation at the field margins and interiors of 20 sunflower fields. Seed predation was estimated as the percentage of removed seeds from sunflower heads. Distances of sample points to the closest high tree and percentage of natural habitat and of high trees in a 1 km radius surrounding the fields were measured. We found that seed predation increased with decreasing distance to the closest high tree at the field and landscape scale. At the landscape scale, the percentage of high trees and natural habitat did not increase seed predation. Seed predation in the fields increased by 37%, with a maximum seed predation of 92%, when a high tree was available within 0-50 m to the sunflower fields. If the closest high tree was further away, seed predation was less than 5%. Sunflower seed predation by birds can be reduced, when avoiding sowing sunflowers within a radius of 50 m to high trees. Farmers should plan to grow crops, not sensitive to bird seed predation, closer to trees to eventually benefit from ecosystem services provided by birds, such as predation of pest insects, while avoiding these locations for growing crops sensitive to bird seed predation. Such management recommendations are directing toward sustainable agricultural landscapes.

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“…Kovacs-Hostyanszki et al (2013) study suggests that the strength and direction of the effect of mass-flowering crops on wild plant pollination services depend on the spatial and temporal scale considered and on the habitat type, the wild plant species, and the time of crop flowering. Similar situation could hold for pest-herbivore interactions in forest fragment as result of spillover from agricultural systems, but this remains largely understudied (Blitzer et al 2012). There is a general lag in our knowledge of the positive effects of agroecosystems for natural habitats in fragmented landscapes (Blitzer et al 2012).…”

Section: Genetic Individual and Population-level Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similar situation could hold for pest-herbivore interactions in forest fragment as result of spillover from agricultural systems, but this remains largely understudied (Blitzer et al 2012). There is a general lag in our knowledge of the positive effects of agroecosystems for natural habitats in fragmented landscapes (Blitzer et al 2012).…”

Section: Genetic Individual and Population-level Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While we have gained good insights on the spillover of organisms and their services from natural to managed habitats, there is far less information on the movement of organisms in the other direction (Blitzer et al 2012). Movement of herbivores, pollinators, and natural enemies to natural habitats can have positive and negative effects on function in natural habitats.…”

Section: Genetic Individual and Population-level Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intersection between biodiversity conservation, agroecology, and ecosystem services

Liere

Jha

Philpott

2017

Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems

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Agroecological research has improved our understanding of the drivers and benefits of biodiversity, thus providing the scientific basis needed to achieve agricultural multifunctionality. We review how agroecology has contributed to our understanding of the effects of local and landscape level drivers on beneficial insects, as well as on the ecosystem services they provide. Several syntheses from agroecosystem research indicate that both populations and biodiversity of pollinator and natural enemies decline with increases in local agricultural intensification and that landscape composition and configuration may mediate these local scale effects. Changes in agricultural management may affect predation and pollination services by altering the resource base for natural enemies and pollinators, by altering their species pool, and by modifying their interactions. The effects of these drivers depend on taxonomical or functional groups and landscape context. Studies that directly measure the cascading effects of landscape drivers on pest control and pollination services and plant level benefits are sparse. We propose five research themes to improve our understanding of the interface of agroecology, conservation, and ecosystem service research.

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Spillover of functionally important organisms between managed and natural habitats

Cited by 483 publications

References 114 publications

Impact of human disturbance on bee pollinator communities in savanna and agricultural sites in Burkina Faso, West Africa

Impact of human disturbance on bee pollinator communities in savanna and agricultural sites in Burkina Faso, West Africa

High trees increase sunflower seed predation by birds in an agricultural landscape of Israel

Intersection between biodiversity conservation, agroecology, and ecosystem services

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