Abstract
Bees provide key pollination services for a wide range of crops. Accumulating evidence shows the effect of semi-natural habitats at the landscape level and local management practices on bee diversity in fields. However, most of the evidence is derived from studies in North America and Europe. Whether this paradigm is applicable in China, which is characterized by smallholder-dominated agricultural landscapes, has rarely been studied. In this study, we aimed to investigate how bee diversity affected apple production, and how landscape and local variables affected bee diversity and species composition on the Northern China Plain. The results showed that bees significantly increased apple fruit set compared to bagged controls. Wild bee diversity was positively related to apple seed numbers. Higher seed numbers reduced the proportion of deformed apples and thus increased fruit quality. Wild bee abundance was positively correlated with flowering ground cover, and both the abundance and species richness of wild bees were positively affected by the percentage of semi-natural habitats. We conclude that apple quality can benefit from ecological intensification comprising the augmentation of wild bees by semi-natural habitats and flowering ground cover. Future pollination management should therefore reduce the intensification level of management at both the local and landscape scales.
Highlights
Pollinators provide essential pollination services to 75% of major global crops (Klein et al, 2007) and 87.5% of wild plants (Ollerton et al, 2011)
Dramatic declines are reported in both honeybee colonies and wild bee diversity, which seriously threaten the provision of pollination services (Biesmeijer et al, 2006; Potts et al, 2010)
We found that bees significantly improved apple fruit set and provided critical pollination services for apple production
Summary
Pollinators provide essential pollination services to 75% of major global crops (Klein et al, 2007) and 87.5% of wild plants (Ollerton et al, 2011). Dramatic declines are reported in both honeybee colonies and wild bee diversity, which seriously threaten the provision of pollination services (Biesmeijer et al, 2006; Potts et al, 2010). The reasons for the decline in wild bees are mainly attributed to local agricultural intensification and landscape simplification (Potts et al, 2010; Tscharntke et al, 2012). The composition and configuration of different habitat types may drive the dispersal and distribution of bees in the whole landscape, which further affects wild bee diversity and associated pollination services to crops (Williams and Kremen, 2007; Tscharntke et al, 2012)
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