Dataset Information

Flower strip networks offer promising long term effects on pollinator species richness in intensively cultivated agricultural areas.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Intensively cultivated agricultural landscapes often suffer from substantial pollinator losses, which may be leading to decreasing pollination services for crops and wild flowering plants. Conservation measures that are easy to implement and accepted by farmers are needed to halt a further loss of pollinators in large areas under intensive agricultural management. Here we report the results of a replicated long-term study involving networks of mostly perennial flower strips covering 10% of a conventionally managed agricultural landscape in southwestern Germany.

Results

We demonstrate the considerable success of these measures for wild bee and butterfly species richness over an observation period of 5 years. Overall species richness of bees and butterflies but also the numbers of specialist bee species clearly increased in the ecological enhancement areas as compared to the control areas without ecological enhancement measures. A three to five-fold increase in species richness was found after more than 2 years of enhancement of the areas with flower strips. Oligolectic bee species increased significantly only after the third year.

Conclusions

In our long-term field experiment we used a large variety of seed mixtures and temporal variation in seeding time, ensured continuity of the flower-strips by using perennial seed mixtures and distributed the measures over c. 10% of the landscape. This led to an increase in pollinator abundance, suggesting that these measures may be instrumental for the successful support of pollinators. These measures may ensure the availability of a network of diverse habitats and foraging resources for pollinators throughout the year, as well as nesting sites for many species. The measures are applied in-field and are suitable for application in areas under intensive agriculture. We propose that flower strip networks should be implemented much more in the upcoming CAP (common agricultural policy) reform in the European Union and promoted more by advisory services for farmers.

SUBMITTER: Buhk C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6280486 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Flower strip networks offer promising long term effects on pollinator species richness in intensively cultivated agricultural areas.

Buhk Constanze C Oppermann Rainer R Schanowski Arno A Bleil Richard R Lüdemann Julian J Maus Christian C

BMC ecology 20181204 1

<h4>Background</h4>Intensively cultivated agricultural landscapes often suffer from substantial pollinator losses, which may be leading to decreasing pollination services for crops and wild flowering plants. Conservation measures that are easy to implement and accepted by farmers are needed to halt a further loss of pollinators in large areas under intensive agricultural management. Here we report the results of a replicated long-term study involving networks of mostly perennial flower strips co ...[more]

PMID: 30514253

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Project description:Landscape heterogeneity is regarded as a key factor for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function in production landscapes. We investigated whether grassland sites at close vicinity to forested areas are more frequently used by bats. Considering that bats are important consumers of herbivorous insects, including agricultural pest, this is important for sustainable land management. Bat activity and species richness were assessed using repeated monitoring from May to September in 2010 with acoustic monitoring surveys on 50 grassland sites in the Biosphere Reserve Schorfheide-Chorin (North-East Germany). Using spatial analysis (GIS), we measured the closest distance of each grassland site to potentially connecting landscape elements (e.g., trees, linear vegetation, groves, running and standing water). In addition, we assessed the distance to and the percent land cover of forest remnants and urban areas in a 200 m buffer around the recording sites to address differences in the local landscape setting. Species richness and bat activity increased significantly with higher forest land cover in the 200 m buffer and at smaller distance to forested areas. Moreover, species richness increased in proximity to tree groves. Larger amount of forest land cover and smaller distance to forest also resulted in a higher activity of bats on grassland sites in the beginning of the year during May, June and July. Landscape elements near grassland sites also influenced species composition of bats and species richness of functional groups (open, edge and narrow space foragers). Our results highlight the importance of forested areas, and suggest that agricultural grasslands that are closer to forest remnants might be better buffered against outbreaks of agricultural pest insects due to higher species richness and higher bat activity. Furthermore, our data reveals that even for highly mobile species such as bats, a very dense network of connecting elements within the landscape is beneficial to promote activity in open areas and thus assure vital ecosystem function in agricultural landscapes.

Dataset Information

Flower strip networks offer promising long term effects on pollinator species richness in intensively cultivated agricultural areas.

Background

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Flower strip networks offer promising long term effects on pollinator species richness in intensively cultivated agricultural areas.

Similar Datasets

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