Diversity of flower-visiting bees in cereal fields: effects of farming system, landscape composition and regional context

By A. Holzschuh, I. Steffan‐Dewenter, D. Kleijn, T. Tscharntke. 2006

509 citations recorded by the source corpus.

1. Agri-environment schemes promote organic farming in an attempt to reduce the negative effects of agricultural intensification on farmland biodiversity and ecosystem services such as pollination. Farming system, landscape context and regional differences may all influence biodiversity, but their relative impact and possible interactions have been little explored. 2. The study was performed in three regions (150 km apart, 400-500 km(2) per region) differing in land use intensity. Within each region, seven pairs of conventionally and organically cultivated wheat fields (mean size 4 ha, 42 study fields) were selected to encompass a gradient from heterogeneous to homogeneous landscapes within a 1-km radius around each field. 3. Farming system had the greatest influence on biodiversity. Higher bee diversity, flower cover and diversity of flowering plants were recorded in organic compared with conventional fields. Bee diversity was related both to flower cover and diversity of flowering plants, suggesting plant-mediated effects of the farming system. 4. Differences in bee diversity between organic and conventional fields increased with the proportion of arable crops in the surrounding landscape, indicating that processes at the landscape level modified the effectiveness of organic farming in promoting biodiversity. Similar patterns for flower cover and diversity of flowering plants suggested that landscape effects on bee diversity were mainly resource-mediated. After statistically removing the variance explained by flower parameters, residual bee diversity increased with increasing landscape heterogeneity. 5. Bee diversity differed between the three regions, but the effects of farming systems and landscape context were independent of regional differences. 6. Synthesis and applications. Bee diversity in wheat fields was mainly influenced by farming system, but an understanding of local bee diversity needs to incorporate both landscape and regional perspectives. The consistency of the results in three regions provides a reliable basis for management decisions. Agri-environment schemes that promote organic farming in homogeneous landscapes where there are few remaining flower-rich habitats could have the highest relative impact. However, while organic farming could help to sustain pollination services by generalist bees in agricultural landscapes, other measures are required to conserve more specialized bee species in semi-natural habitats.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Insect Science, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/11667f419ef54e58b1de6e82f23d38ff75ed5445

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Insect Science

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Creating patches of native flowers facilitates crop pollination in large agricultural fields: mango as a case study (2012, background): “Such an offset might be expected in homogeneous landscapes with little or no natural habitat, where the only remaining flower visitors are able to nest within farmland, but not in richer landscapes (as in this study), where the diverse flower visitor community probably depends on various foraging, n”
Set-aside management: How do succession, sowing patterns and landscape context affect biodiversity? (2011, background): “Plant and bee diversity in Germany was higher in organic than in conventional cereal fields in simple landscapes, but not in complex landscapes (Holzschuh et al., 2007).”
Biological Control of Insect Pests in Agroecosystems: Effects of Crop Management, Farming Systems, and Seminatural Habitats at the Landscape Scale: A Review (2010, background): “They showed that organic or low-intensity farming systems have no or low effects on populations in complex landscapes, whereas they have a substantial influence in simple landscapes (Holzschuh et al., 2007; Roschewitz et al., 2005a; Rundlöf and Smith, 2006).”
Pervasive effects of dispersal limitation on within- and among-community species richness in agricultural landscapes (2009, background): “Although studies across a wide range of organisms demonstrate that the observed decrease in species diversity in rural areas is at least in part related to agricultural intensification per se (Attwood et al ., 2008), it is additionally affected by the size and spatial configuration of natural habita”
Synthesis, part of a Special Feature on A Social-Ecological Analysis of Diversified Farming Systems: Benefits, Costs, Obstacles, and Enabling Policy Frameworks Ecosystem Services in Biologically Diversified versus Conventional Farming Systems: Benefits, Externalities, and Trade-Offs (2012, background): “The authors attributed these spillover effects to the enhancement of the diversity and abundance of floral resources in the organic fields that provide nectar and pollen for pollinator species, rather than to the reduction of insecticide use (Holzschuh et al. 2007, 2008).”
Gardens benefit bees and enhance pollination in intensively managed farmland (2011, background): “Interestingly, organic farming has been found to benefit both pollinators (Holzschuh et al., 2008; Rundlöf et al., 2008) and insect-pollinated plants (Gabriel and Tscharntke, 2007).”
Spillover of functionally important organisms between managed and natural habitats (2012, background): “…habitats for foraging, but that they must return to natural habitat areas to complete their reproductive cycle because of the frequent disturbance regime in agricultural fields (Hayter and Cresswell, 2006; Greenleaf et al., 2007; Holzschuh et al., 2007; Kremen et al., 2007; Winfree et al., 2007).”
Wild pollination services to California almond rely on semi‐natural habitat (2012, background): “…habitat (Kremen, Williams & Thorp 2002; Steffan-Dewenter 2002) or by organic management (Morandin &Winston 2005; Gabriel et al. 2010) and by the potential interaction between landscape and crop management variables (Holzschuh et al. 2007; Rundlof, Nilsson & Smith 2008; Batáry et al. 2011).”
Optimizing the biodiversity gain from agri-environment schemes (2009, result): “Our results add to those of recent studies that show the significant impacts of landscape context on biodiversity (e.g. Hendrickx et al., 2007; Holzschuh et al., 2007; Kivinen et al., 2007).”
Homogenization of lepidopteran communities in intensively cultivated agricultural landscapes (2010, background): “The importance of the quality of surrounding landscape structure has been well-documented in the case of biodiversity effects of organic farming (Bengtsson, Ahnström & Weibull 2005; Rundlöf & Smith 2006; Holzschuh et al. 2007).”
Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes ‐ eight hypotheses (2012, background): “Hence, introducing organic farming, field margins, hedges or fallows provides greater enhancement of local diversity and ecosystem functioning (such as biological control, pollination or seed dispersal) in simple landscapes with intermediate proportions of non-crop habitat area (1-20%), compared to ”
Are spiders reacting to local or landscape scale effects in Hungarian pastures (2008, unknown): “Schmidt et al., 2005; Bata´ry et al., 2007b; Holzschuh et al., 2007; Concepcio´n et al., 2008).”
Landscape composition and configuration differently affect trap-nesting bees, wasps and their antagonists (2014, background): “This maximum distance was chosen due to flight and foraging distances reported for solitary bees (Gathmann and Tscharntke, 2002; Zurbuchen et al., 2010) and relevant landscape scales in previous studies (Holzschuh et al., 2007; Steffan-Dewenter and Schiele, 2008).”