Landscapes with high intensive fruit cultivation reduce wild pollinator services to sweet cherry

Abstract

Fruit cultivation highly depends on insect pollination for fruit development. Yet, fruit cultivation as an intensive land use can possibly alter the diversity of pollinator communities and the corresponding pollination service. In this study we investigate how intensive fruit cultivation influences both pollinator diversity and fruit set in sweet cherry orchards in Flanders, Belgium. Negative relations were detected between intensive fruit cultivation within 250m around the orchards and both pollinator species richness and wild pollinator abundance. Honeybee abundance on cherry blossom was positively related with intensive fruit cultivation within 1000m. Sweet cherry fruit set decreased with increasing intensive fruit cultivation within 250m and 1000m around the orchards. These findings suggest that intensive land use such as intensive fruit cultivation can undermine the pollination service of wild pollinators. In addition, the loss of this pollination service was not compensated by honeybees. In these intensive agricultural landscapes the production of sweet cherry is below the optimum, inducing a clear yield gap. In order to gain the full benefit of intensive agriculture, the pollination service needs to be optimised. Landscape-scale measures need to be taken, such as conservation of semi-natural habitat to improve nesting and flowering resources.