Insect pollinated plants benefit from organic farming

By Doreen Gabriel, T. Tscharntke. 2007

206 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Organic farming is predicted to enhance diversity in agroecosystems. This study addresses the question of whether the often observed positive effect of organic farming on arable weed and pollinator diversity results in a significant shift in arable weed community structure towards a higher proportion of insect pollinated species in organic crop fields. To examine whether plant community patterns were consistent with this hypothesis, arable weed communities were compared with respect to the type of pollination (i.e. insect pollination versus non-insect pollination) in the edges and centres of 20 organic and 20 conventional wheat fields. Plant species numbers of both pollination types were much higher in organic than in conventional fields and higher in the field edge than in the field centre. A comparison of the proportions of both pollination types to all plant species revealed that the relative number of insect pollinated species was higher in organic than in conventional fields and higher at the field edge than in the field centre, whereas the relative number of non-insect pollinated species was higher in conventional fields and in the field centre. Our results show that insect pollinated plants benefit disproportionately from organic farming, which appeared to be related to higher pollinator densities in organic fields, whereas in the centres of conventional fields non-insect pollinated plants dominate presumably due to a limitation of pollinators. Hence, disruption of plant-pollinator interactions due to agricultural intensification may cause important shifts in plant community structure.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a97c2cc21550b2b70665d4b8471a31f76fb2f695

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Insect Science

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Weed-insect pollinator networks as bio-indicators of ecological sustainability in agriculture. A review (2016, background): “The frequency of rare weeds in arable land plant communities represents an indicator of their ecological sustainability (Benvenuti and Macchia 2003; Albrecht 2003; Gabriel and Tscharntke 2007).”
Safeguarding pollinators and their values to human well-being (2016, unknown): “Herbicides, used to control weeds, pose an indirect risk because they reduce the abundance and diversity of flowering plants providing pollen and nectar to pollinators 69 .”
Factors and processes affecting plant biodiversity in permanent grasslands. A review (2011, unknown): “Then, by favoring gene flow between distant populations and thus the plant reproductive success, habitat connectivity helps to prevent decreasing plant fitness (Gabriel and Tscharntke 2007; Newman and Tallmon 2001; Piessens et al. 2004).”
Weeds for bees? A review (2015, background): “…change (SteffanDewenter et al. 2002; Kremen et al. 2002), and pesticides, especially insecticides which have both lethal and sub-lethal effects (Henry et al. 2012; Desneux et al. 2007), and herbicides which further reduce floral resources (Gabriel and Tscharntke 2007) also play an important role.”
Opportunities to enhance pollinator biodiversity in solar parks (2021, background): “Insecticides may pose the greatest risk to pollinators through direct mortality and a range of sub-lethal effects [28], whereas fertilisers and herbicides affect pollinator indirectly through changes to the non-cultivated flowering plant community and the foraging and reproductive resources they pro”
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).”
Ecological impacts of early 21st century agricultural change in Europe--a review. (2009, background): “In Germany, the relative number of insect pollinated species was higher in organic than in conventional fields and higher at the field edge than in the field centre, which is likely to be related to higher pollinator densities in organic fields (Gabriel and Tscharntke, 2007).”