Landscapes with wild bee habitats enhance pollination, fruit set and yield of sweet cherry

By A. Holzschuh, Jan‐Hendrik Dudenhöffer, T. Tscharntke. 2012

300 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract More than 70% of the leading global food crops, accounting for 35% of the global food production, are affected by pollination of flower-visiting animals, but the main pollinators – managed honey bees and wild bees – are currently declining in many regions worldwide. For the vast majority of crops it is unknown whether managed honey bees or wild bees are the most efficient pollinators, and how the pollination service provided by wild bees can be ensured. We assessed in a landscape-scale study how sweet cherry production is influenced (1) by high-diversity bee habitats, and (2) by flowering ground vegetation which might compete with cherry for pollinators or might facilitate cherry pollination. Cherry was highly dependent on insect pollination with bagged flowers producing only 3% of the fruits produced by open-pollinated flowers. Although two thirds of all flower visitors were honey bees, fruit set was related to wild bee visitation only, presumably due to their higher pollination efficiency. Initial fruit set and final cherry yield were closely correlated. Wild bee visitation increased with the proportion of high-diversity bee habitats in the surrounding landscape (1 km radius). An increase of high-diversity bee habitats in the landscape from 20% to 50% enhanced fruit set by 150%, which was experimentally shown to be due to pollen limitation. Neither flower cover of ground vegetation nor bee densities on ground transects were related to flower visitation in trees or fruit set. Our results show that pollination services by wild bees in cherry surpassed pollination by honey bees. Hence, farmers need to protect semi-natural habitats in their landscapes to guarantee pollination and high yields. The conservation of semi-natural habitats, which provide nesting sites and additional food resources before and after cherry flowering enhances gratis ecosystem services, and thereby, the farmer’s yield.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/36f7a63af1bb45b35c0b0b900e8d066da2696ffc

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Citations in the corpus

Pollination efficiency and foraging behaviour of honey bees and non‐Apis bees to sweet cherry (2019, background): “Previous studies in sweet cherry have highlighted the contribution of wild pollinators to sweet cherry production (Holzschuh et al., 2012; Eeraerts et al., 2017; Eeraerts et al., 2019b).”
Pollinator Diversity: Distribution, Ecological Function, and Conservation (2017, background): “2003), cherries (Holzschuh et al. 2012), apples (Blitzer et al.”
Weeds for bees? A review (2015, background): “Furthermore, some rapeseed flower traits, such as pollen production, are more attractive to some pollinating insects than to others (Holzschuh et al. 2013; Stanley et al. 2013).”
Do sown flower strips boost wild pollinator abundance and pollination services in a spring-flowering crop? A case study from UK cider apple orchards (2017, background): “Therefore, such flower mixes 531 are unlikely to support pollination services in apple, or other important crops 532 pollinated by andrenid bees, including sweet cherry (Holzschuh et al. 2012), 533 blueberry (Blaauw & Isaacs 2014), and oilseed rape (Woodcock et al. 2013).”
Linking Land Cover Data and Crop Yields for Mapping and Assessment of Pollination Services in Europe (2013, background): “Habitat heterogeneity and the presence of semi-natural habitats in an agricultural landscape improve insect activity due to increased nesting sites and floral resources [35–37].”
Natural land cover drives pollinator abundance and richness, leading to reductions in pollen limitation in cotton agroecosystems (2016, background): “Pollen limitation was measured as the difference in seed-cotton weight, between open outcross (OO) treatment flowers and open (O) flowers that received ambient pollination service (as per Klein et al., 2003; Groeneveld et al., 2010; Holzschuh et al., 2012; Benjamin et al., 2014).”
Beyond nectar provision: the other resource requirements of parasitoid biological control agents (2016, background): “For example, semi-natural habitat cover and landscape complexity are strongly linked to insect pollination (Ricketts et al., 2008; Holzschuh et al., 2012), and several beneficial insects and birds require shelter, overwintering habitat, and alternative food sources (Landis et al., 2000; Martin et…”
Extent of Kentucky Bluegrass and Its Effect on Native Plant Species Diversity and Ecosystem Services in the Northern Great Plains of the United States (2014, background): “Diversity of vegetation supports a variety of pollinators and provides a pollination service necessary for high yields in many crop species (Holzschuh et al. 2012).”
Pollination reservoirs for wild bee habitat enhancement in cropping systems: a review (2017, background): “In Germany, Holzschuh, Dudenhöffer, and Tscharntke (2012) found this relationship in cherry orchards; in Australia, Blanche, Ludwig, and Cunningham (2006) confirmed the pattern in macadamia and longan orchards.”