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Seasonal complementary in pollinators of soft-fruit crops

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Hanley_2016_BAE_SeasonalComplementary_AAM.pdf (954.6Kb)
Date
03/2017
Author
Ellis, Ciaran R.
Feltham, Hannah
Park, Kirsty
Hanley, Nick
Goulson, Dave
Keywords
Bumblebee
Bombus
Pollinator
Flies
Ecosystem services
Farmland biodiversity
Pollination ecology
GE Environmental Sciences
NDAS
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Abstract
Understanding the relative contributions of wild and managed pollinators, and the functional contributions made by a diverse pollinator community, is essential to the maintenance of yields in the 75% of our crops that benefit from insect pollination. We describe a field study and pollinator exclusion experiments conducted on two soft-fruit crops in a system with both wild and managed pollinators. We test whether fruit quality and quantity is limited by pollination, and whether different pollinating insects respond differently to varying weather conditions. Both strawberries and raspberries produced fewer marketable fruits when insects were excluded, demonstrating dependence on insect pollinators. Raspberries had a short flowering season which coincided with peak abundance of bees, and attracted many bees per flower. In contrast, strawberries had a much longer flowering season and appeared to be much less attractive to pollinators, so that ensuring adequate pollination is likely to be more challenging. The proportion of high-quality strawberries was positively related to pollinator abundance, suggesting that yield was limited by inadequate pollination on some farms. The relative abundance of different pollinator taxa visiting strawberries changed markedly through the season, demonstrating seasonal complementarity. Insect visitors responded differently to changing weather conditions suggesting that diversity can reduce the risk of pollination service shortfalls. For example, flies visited the crop flowers in poor weather and at the end of the flowering season when other pollinators were scarce, and so may provide a unique functional contribution. Understanding how differences between pollinator groups can enhance pollination services to crops strengthens the case for multiple species management. We provide evidence for the link between increased diversity and function in real crop systems, highlighting the risks of replacing all pollinators with managed alternatives.
Citation
Ellis , C R , Feltham , H , Park , K , Hanley , N & Goulson , D 2017 , ' Seasonal complementary in pollinators of soft-fruit crops ' , Basic and Applied Ecology , vol. 19 , pp. 45-55 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2016.11.007
Publication
Basic and Applied Ecology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2016.11.007
ISSN
1439-1791
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016 Gesellschaft für Ökologie. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2016.11.007
Description
This work was supported in part by BBSRC grant BB/J014753/1.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12339

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