The effectiveness of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control, pollination services and crop yield: a quantitative synthesis.

Matthias Albrecht,Matteo Dainese,Philippe Jeanneret,Carsten Thies,Mattias Jonsson,Matthias Tschumi,Louis Sutter,Dominik Ganser,Rufus Isaacs,Maj Rundlöf,Eva Knop,Claire Kremen,Andrew Wilby,Riccardo Bommarco,Gregory M Loeb,Eve Veromann,Eric Venturini,Simon G Potts,Francis A Drummond,Dave Goulson,Heather Grab,Lorenzo Marini,Megan Mckerchar,Douglas A Landis,Megan Woltz,David Kleijn,Sonja C Pfister,Teja Tscharntke,Brett R Blaauw,Martin H Entling,Neal M Williams,Katja Jacot,Hannah Hamilton,G.a De Groot ,Amber R Sciligo ,Félix Wäckers ,Lora A Morandin ,Alistair John Campbell ,Kimiora L Ward ,Félix Herzog ,Ines M G Vollhardt ,Steve D Wratten ,Hillary S Sardiñas

doi:10.1111/ele.13576

Abstract

Floral plantings are promoted to foster ecological intensification of agriculture through provisioning of ecosystem services. However, a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of different floral plantings, their characteristics and consequences for crop yield is lacking. Here we quantified the impacts of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control (18 studies) and pollination services (17 studies) in adjacent crops in North America, Europe and New Zealand. Flower strips, but not hedgerows, enhanced pest control services in adjacent fields by 16% on average. However, effects on crop pollination and yield were more variable. Our synthesis identifies several important drivers of variability in effectiveness of plantings: pollination services declined exponentially with distance from plantings, and perennial and older flower strips with higher flowering plant diversity enhanced pollination more effectively. These findings provide promising pathways to optimise floral plantings to more effectively contribute to ecosystem service delivery and ecological intensification of agriculture in the future.

Highlights

Meeting the increasing demands for agricultural products while minimising negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem health is among the greatest global challenges (Godfray et al, 2010)
The provisioning of pest control services in crop fields adjacent to flower strips was enhanced by 16% on average compared to fields without flower strips
Pollination services were increased near floral plantings and decreased exponentially with increasing distance from plantings, while no such effect of distance to field edge was detected for control fields (Fig. 2b)

Summary

Introduction

Meeting the increasing demands for agricultural products while minimising negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem health is among the greatest global challenges (Godfray et al, 2010). Established along field edges, flower strips and hedgerows offer resources for pollinators and natural enemies of crop pests such as shelter, oviposition sites, overwintering opportunities and food resources (Tschumi et al, 2015; Holland et al, 2016; Kremen et al, 2019) and can locally increase their abundance and diversity (Haaland et al, 2011; Scheper et al, 2013; M’Gonigle et al, 2015; Williams et al, 2015; Tschumi et al, 2016; Sutter et al, 2017, 2018; Kremen et al, 2019). This may explain why plantings fail to enhance crop pollination or pest control services, even if they successfully promote local pollinator or natural enemy abundance in restored habitats (e.g. Phillips and Gardiner, 2015; Tscharntke et al, 2016; Karp et al, 2018)

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