Agricultural expansion and loss of (semi-)natural habitats are major drivers of pollinator declines (Potts et al., 2010), with associated threats to the pollination services these species provide to wild plant populations (Clough et al., 2014; Martins et al., 2015; Pauw & Bond, 2011) and crop yields (Fijen et al., 2018; Sritongchuay et al., 2020; Webber et al., 2020). However, reversing these trends by converting agricultural fields to semi-natural habitat comes with high opportunity costs (smaller surface productive land) that may not outweigh the benefits of increased productivity (Kleijn et al., 2019). Increasing the diversity of mass-flowering crops is often raised as a promising strategy to complement resources to semi-natural habitats, which ultimately could benefit pollinator biodiversity levels in agricultural landscapes (Fahrig et al., 2011). Whether this approach could work likely depends on the capacity of different crops to sustain complementary diverse pollinator communities, or to supplement the characteristics of semi-natural habitats. However, we know surprisingly little about the potential of mass-flowering crop diversity to support rich pollinator communities (but see Raderschall et al., 2021; Sirami et al., 2019) and about the characteristics in semi-natural habitats that make them so relevant for pollinators. For instance, is semi-natural habitat the main determinant of the diversity of pollinator communities or can (diversity in) flowering crops boost pollinator diversity by adding new and abundant resources? Does this vary over space and time? Do different crop types complement each other and partially provide for different species?
Temporal and spatial heterogeneity of semi-natural habitat, but not crop diversity, is correlated with landscape pollinator richness
Year: 2022
