Plant Ecology and Evolution 154(3): 341-350, doi: 10.5091/plecevo.2021.1884
Bees increase seed set of wild plants while the proportion of arable land has a variable effect on pollination in European agricultural landscapes
expand article infoLina Herbertsson‡, Johan Ekroos‡, Matthias Albrecht§, Ignasi Bartomeus|, Péter Batáry, Riccardo Bommarco#, Paul Caplat‡, Tim Diekötter¤, Jenny M. Eikestam‡, Martin H. Entling«, Sunniva Farbu‡, Nina Farwig», Juan P. Gonzalez-Varo˄, Annika L. Hass˅, Andrea Holzschuh¦, Sebastian Hopfenmüllerˀ, Anna Jakobssonˁ, Birgit Jauker₵, Anikó Kovács-Hostyánszkiℓ, Wera Kleve#, William E. Kunin₰, Sandra A.M. Lindström#, Sarah Mullen₱, Erik Öckinger₳, Theodora Petanidou₴, Simon G. Potts₣, Eileen F. Power₱, Maj Rundlof₮, Kathrin Seibel‡, Virve Sõber₦, Annika Söderman‡, Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter₭, Jane C. Stout₱, Tiit Teder₲, Teja Tscharntke‽, Henrik G. Smith‡
‡ Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden§ Agroscope, Agroecology and Environment, Zürich, Switzerland| Doñana Biological Station, Seville, Spain¶ Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Lendület Landscape and Conservation Ecology, Vácrátót, Hungary# Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden¤ Institute for Natural Resource Conservation, Department of Landscape Ecology, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany« Institute for Environmental Sciences, University Koblenz - Landau, Landau, Germany» Department of Biology, Conservation Ecology, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany˄ Estación Biológica de Doñana EBD-CSIC, Department of Integrative Ecology, Sevilla, Spain˅ Functional Agrobiodiversity, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany¦ University of Wuerzburg, WUerzburg, Germanyˀ Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germanyˁ Högskolan Väst, Trollhättan, Sweden₵ Department of Animal Ecology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germanyℓ Lendület Ecosystem Services Research Group, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Centre for Ecological Research, Vácrátót, Hungary₰ University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom₱ School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland₳ Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden₴ Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece₣ University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom₮ Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden₦ Department of Zoology, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia₭ University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany₲ University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia‽ Agroecology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

Corresponding author: Lina Herbertsson ( lina.herbertsson@biol.lu.se )

© Lina Herbertsson, Johan Ekroos, Matthias Albrecht, Ignasi Bartomeus, Péter Batáry, Riccardo Bommarco, Paul Caplat, Tim Diekötter, Jenny M. Eikestam, Martin H. Entling, Sunniva Farbu, Nina Farwig, Juan P. Gonzalez-Varo, Annika L. Hass, Andrea Holzschuh, Sebastian Hopfenmüller, Anna Jakobsson, Birgit Jauker, Anikó Kovács-Hostyánszki, Wera Kleve, William E. Kunin, Sandra A.M. Lindström, Sarah Mullen, Erik Öckinger, Theodora Petanidou, Simon G. Potts, Eileen F. Power, Maj Rundlöf, Kathrin Seibel, Virve Sõber, Annika Söderman, Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter, Jane C. Stout, Tiit Teder, Teja Tscharntke, Henrik G. Smith.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Herbertsson L, Ekroos J, Albrecht M, Bartomeus I, Batáry P, Bommarco R, Caplat P, Diekötter T, Eikestam JM, Entling MH, Farbu S, Farwig N, Gonzalez-Varo JP, Hass AL, Holzschuh A, Hopfenmüller S, Jakobsson A, Jauker B, Kovács-Hostyánszki A, Kleve W, Kunin WE, Lindström SA.M, Mullen S, Öckinger E, Petanidou T, Potts SG, Power EF, Rundlof M, Seibel K, Sõber V, Söderman A, Steffan-Dewenter I, Stout JC, Teder T, Tscharntke T, Smith HG (2021) Bees increase seed set of wild plants while the proportion of arable land has a variable effect on pollination in European agricultural landscapes. Plant Ecology and Evolution 154(3): 341-350. https://doi.org/10.5091/plecevo.2021.1884
Open Access
Abstract

Background and aims – Agricultural intensification and loss of farmland heterogeneity have contributed to population declines of wild bees and other pollinators, which may have caused subsequent declines in insect-pollinated wild plants.

Material and methods – Using data from 37 studies on 22 pollinator-dependent wild plant species across Europe, we investigated whether flower visitation and seed set of insect-pollinated plants decline with an increasing proportion of arable land within 1 km.

Key results – Seed set increased with increasing flower visitation by bees, most of which were wild bees, but not with increasing flower visitation by other insects. Increasing proportion of arable land had a strongly variable effect on seed set and flower visitation by bees across studies.

Conclusion – Factors such as landscape configuration, local habitat quality, and temporally changing resource availability (e.g. due to mass-flowering crops or honey bee hives) could have modified the effect of arable land on pollination. While our results highlight that the persistence of wild bees is crucial to maintain plant diversity, we also show that pollen limitation due to declining bee populations in homogenized agricultural landscapes is not a universal driver causing parallel losses of bees and insect-pollinated plants.

Keywords
habitat loss, landscape complexity, landscape simplification, pollination, pollinating insects, semi-natural

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