Higher bee abundance, but not pest abundance, in landscapes with more agriculture on a late-flowering legume crop in tropical smallholder farms.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Landscape composition is known to affect both beneficial insect and pest communities on crop fields. Landscape composition therefore can impact ecosystem (dis)services provided by insects to crops. Though landscape effects on ecosystem service providers have been studied in large-scale agriculture in temperate regions, there is a lack of representation of tropical smallholder agriculture within this field of study, especially in sub-Sahara Africa. Legume crops can provide important food security and soil improvement benefits to vulnerable agriculturalists. However, legumes are dependent on pollinating insects, particularly bees (Hymenoptera: Apiformes) for production and are vulnerable to pests. We selected 10 pigeon pea (Fabaceae: Cajunus cajan (L.)) fields in Ma

SUBMITTER: Vogel C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7899018 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature