Abstract
BackgroundIn the past decade, accumulating evidence of pollinator decline has raised concerns regarding the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems and the sustainability of crop production. Although land-use changes have been advanced as the major causes, the affinities of most wild pollinators with the main land-use types remain unknown. Filling this gap in our knowledge is a prerequisite to improving conservation and management programmes.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe estimated the affinity of flower visitors with urban, agricultural and natural land-uses using data from a country-wide scale monitoring scheme based on citizen science (Spipoll). We tested whether the affinities differed among insect orders and according to insect frequency (frequent or infrequent). Our results indicate that the affinities with the three land-use types differed among insect orders. Apart from Hymenopterans, which appeared tolerant to the different land-uses, all flower visitors presented a negative affinity with urban areas and a positive affinity with agricultural and natural areas. Additionally, infrequent taxa displayed a lower affinity with urban areas and a higher affinity with natural areas than did frequent taxa. Within frequent taxa, Hymenoptera and Coleoptera included specialists of the three land-use types whereas Diptera and Lepidoptera contained specialists of all but urban areas.Conclusions/SignificanceOur approach allowed the first standardised evaluation of the affinity of flower visitors with the main land-use types across a broad taxonomical range and a wide geographic scope. Our results suggest that the most detrimental land-use change for flower visitor communities is urbanisation. Moreover, our findings highlight the fact that agricultural areas have the potential to host highly diverse pollinator communities. We suggest that policy makers should, therefore, focus on the implementation of pollinator-friendly practices in agricultural lands. This may be a win-win strategy, as both biodiversity and crop production may benefit from healthier communities of flower visitors in these areas.
Highlights
Animal pollination is a key process in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, as is shown by the fact that the reproduction of 87.5% of flowering plants depends on it [1]
The Spipoll collected over 7500 standardised observations of flower visitors distributed across a whole country
We showed contrasting patterns among insect orders and important variations in affinities with the different types of land-use within orders of flower visitors
Summary
Animal pollination is a key process in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, as is shown by the fact that the reproduction of 87.5% of flowering plants depends on it [1]. Agricultural intensification has been shown to decrease bee, hoverfly and butterfly diversity [9,16,17] It remains uncertain whether habitat fragmentation per se [18] is a cause of pollinator loss as changes in species composition do not always turn into diversity loss [19,20]. Land-use changes have been advanced as the major causes, the affinities of most wild pollinators with the main land-use types remain unknown. Filling this gap in our knowledge is a prerequisite to improving conservation and management programmes
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