Mass flowering crops enhance pollinator densities at a landscape scale

By C. Westphal, I. Steffan‐Dewenter, T. Tscharntke. 2003

706 citations recorded by the source corpus.

To counteract the decline of pollinators in Europe, conservation strategies traditionally focus on enhancing the local availability of semi-natural habitats, as supported by the European Union’s Common Agriculture Policy. In contrast, we show that densities of bumblebees, an important pollinator group in agroecosystems, were not determined by the proportion of semi-natural habitats in agricultural landscapes. Instead, bumblebee densities were positively related to the availability of highly rewarding mass flowering crops (i.e. oilseed rape) in the landscape. In addition, mass flowering crops were only effective determinants of bumblebee densities when grown extensively at the landscape scale, but not at smaller local scales. Therefore, future conservation measures should consider the importance of mass flowering crops and the need for management schemes at landscape level to sustain vital pollination services in agroecosystems.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4290492b04d8741ccfcf2e7aa200a0e1fe5b6161

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Citations in the corpus

Intensification of agriculture, landscape composition and wild bee communities: a large scale study in four European countries. (2010, background): “ing crops can provide highly rewarding resources during some periods of the year, but not in a continuous manner (Westphal et al., 2003; Greenleaf and Kremen, 2006).”
On managing the red mason bee (Osmia bicornis) in apple orchards (2011, positive): “Food availability has also been demonstrated to correlate positively at the landscape scale for bumblebees (Westphal et al. 2003; Williams and Kremen 2007) and for O. lignaria (Williams and Kremen 2007) and in caging experiments with Osmia pumilla (Goodell 2003).”
The area requirements of an ecosystem service: crop pollination by native bee communities in California (2004, background): “Finally, potentially important variables that we were not able to measure include landscape variables that measure nest site and floral availability, including the area of crops providing floral resources (e.g. Westphal et al. 2003).”
Oilseed rape crops distort plant-pollinator interactions. (2010, background): “Mass-flowering crops have been proposed as one way of enhancing pollinator abundance in agroecosystems (Westphal et al. 2003; but see Westphal et al. 2009) even though this runs contrary to extensificationmeasures.”
Pollen transport differs among bees and flies in a human‐modified landscape (2011, background): “honeybee and bumble bee) to common and/or generalist insect assemblages in agroecosystems, even though such landscapes are known to support diverse pollinator communities (Westphal et al., 2003; Klein et al., 2007; Rader et al., 2009).”
Pollinator-friendly management does not increase the diversity of farmland bees and wasps (2015, background): “This proportion of semi-natural habitat is high, as areas where comparable studies have been carried out in continental Europe often have considerably less semi-natural habitat, typically 5–10% (e.g. Steffan-Dewenter et al., 2002; Westphal et al., 2003; Herrmann et al., 2007).”
Relationships between wild bees, hoverflies and pollination success in apple orchards with different landscape contexts (2016, background): “Several former studies showed negative or positive effects of habitat quantity and quality of the surroundings (Banaszak, 1992; Kleijn & van Langevelde, 2006; Kennedy et al., 2013; Shackelford et al., 2013; but see also Steffan-Dewenter et al., 2002; Westphal et al., 2003).”
Declines in forage availability for bumblebees at a national scale (2006, background): “, 2000) has probably benefited shorter-tongued species such as Bombus terrestris (Westphal et al., 2003).”
Ecological and life-history traits predict bee species responses to environmental disturbances (2010, background): “…same colony visit different floral resources which may lead to contact with toxins over a wider area and from more sources and (5) some species exploit mass flowering crops extensively (Westphal et al., 2003), and recruit to concentrated resources (Apis spp.), which then become traps when sprayed.”
Mass flowering oilseed rape improves early colony growth but not sexual reproduction of bumblebees (2009, positive): “Thus, earlier findings of high B. terrestris densities in landscapes with large amounts of oilseed rape (Westphal et al. 2003, 2006a) can be attributed to enhanced colony growth instead of higher numbers of established colonies in the landscape.”
Massively Introduced Managed Species and Their Consequences for Plant–Pollinator Interactions (2017, background): “…densities commonly ascribed to MFC, from the local to the landscape scale (Holzschuh et al., 2013; Jauker et al., 2012; Knight et al., 2009;Westphal et al., 2003, 2009; Box 3), it seems likely that competition or facilitation between coflowering plants via shared pollinators would be…”