Effects Of Farming Practices And Landscape Composition On Wild Invertebrate Pollinator And Bird Abundance Richness And Health

DOWNLOAD

Download Effects Of Farming Practices And Landscape Composition On Wild Invertebrate Pollinator And Bird Abundance Richness And Health PDF/ePub or read online books in Mobi eBooks. Click Download or Read Online button to get Effects Of Farming Practices And Landscape Composition On Wild Invertebrate Pollinator And Bird Abundance Richness And Health book now. This website allows unlimited access to, at the time of writing, more than 1.5 million titles, including hundreds of thousands of titles in various foreign languages. If the content not found or just blank you must refresh this page

Effects Of Farming Practices And Landscape Composition On Wild Invertebrate Pollinator And Bird Abundance Richness And Health

DOWNLOAD
Author : Michelle Catherine Toshack
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2018

Effects Of Farming Practices And Landscape Composition On Wild Invertebrate Pollinator And Bird Abundance Richness And Health written by Michelle Catherine Toshack and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2018 with categories.

Wildlife biodiversity is threatened by agricultural intensification, which reduces and fragments natural habitat. I examine how farming practices and landscape composition influence wild pollinators and birds that inhabit these ecosystems. I also assess pollen foraging preferences of wild bumble bees and the effect of foraging preferences on their health. Forest cover was the main predictor of wild pollinator and bird abundance and richness, and floral resource availability also increased the abundance and richness of pollinators. There was no effect of farm management type (organic vs. conventional) on abundance or diversity of either pollinators or birds. Bumble bees showed a strong foraging preference for flowers not found on farms, and those collected in natural areas had higher body fat content than bees collected on farms. These results emphasize the importance of the conservation of natural habitat adjacent to agricultural areas for biodiversity, and of floral resources in natural areas for pollinator health.

Influence Of Landscape Composition Landscape Diversity And Conservation Management On Bee Health Via A Pollen Nutrition Mechanism

DOWNLOAD
Author : Gabriela Marie Quinlan
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2020

Influence Of Landscape Composition Landscape Diversity And Conservation Management On Bee Health Via A Pollen Nutrition Mechanism written by Gabriela Marie Quinlan and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020 with Bee culture categories.

Bees are the most important pollinators in agricultural systems, with honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) in particular providing the majority of pollination services on commercial farms. However, due to interacting stressors including lack of nutrition and disease, honey bees and other bee species are experiencing elevated loss rates compared to historical records. Access to abundant, high quality, continuous nutrition in the landscape has been suggested as a means of promoting bee health. To test this, I studied honey bee and bumble bee colonies in 12 apiaries that ranged in land cover composition of the surrounding forage landscape. Honey bee colony cluster size and brood area at the end of the summer were most closely related to post-spring pollination colony size and other colony-level variation, whereas bumble bee colony weight, gyne and drone production were related to surrounding land covers. This demonstrates the importance of accounting for potentially confounding honey bee colony variation in landscape-scale studies. To determine if diversity of land covers affected honey bee pollen foraging and colony size, I also measured honey bee colony size and incoming pollen at 12 apiaries located within landscapes of differing land cover diversity, and found that the relationship between land cover diversity, incoming pollen quantity and colony cluster size changed over time. This suggests that land cover diversity alone is insufficient for predicting patterns in honey bee landscape nutrition studies in this region. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land may include flowering, herbaceous species in seed mixes, but in states such as Michigan with abundant forage in unmanaged habitats, it is unclear if CRP investments have unique floral composition, and foraging by honey bees and wild bees. I assessed floral composition and bee visitation on CRP land as compared to analogous unmanaged fields and roadside ditches in 31 triplicate sites. Floral abundance, species richness, native flower abundance, and inflorescence coverage were all higher on CRP land, as were honey bee and wild bee visitation, indicating that herbaceous CRP promotes bee foraging through unique floral composition, namely floral density. By assessing the quantity and quality of incoming pollen at apiaries while concurrently surveying floral communities in nearby grassy-herbaceous forage habitat, I found that crude protein in collected pollen decreased throughout the summer, concurrent with decreasing floral richness and abundance. This suggests pollinator plantings should include protein-rich, late-blooming species in their seed mixes. Because nutrition is closely tied to disease in honey bees, supplementing protein may promote recovery from diseases such as European foulbrood. To compare different approaches to managing this disease, European foulbrood-infected colonies were treated with traditional antibiotics, antibiotics with a soy-based protein supplements, soy-based supplement alone, pollen-based supplement, probiotics, or left untreated. There was no significant difference among non-antibiotic treatments in post-treatment recovery speed or nurse bee physiology, suggesting these supplemental feeding treatments and probiotics provide no treatment benefits for European foulbrood. Based on this research, accounting for colony-level variation is essential in honey bee landscape studies. Adding pollinator conservation habitat with an increased emphasis on late-season, protein-rich pollen species in seed mixes can benefit honey bees and wild bee species. This work provides new insights into the effects of landscapes on honey bee and wild bee foraging, nutrition and health by examining different aspects of these indirect relationships.

The Impacts Of Landscape And On Farm Practices On Wild Bee Populations Visiting Apple Orchard Crop Flowers In Ontario

DOWNLOAD
Author : Leah Blechschmidt
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2020

The Impacts Of Landscape And On Farm Practices On Wild Bee Populations Visiting Apple Orchard Crop Flowers In Ontario written by Leah Blechschmidt and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020 with categories.

Pollinators provide vital services to agriculture, producing one in three mouthfuls of food including 76% of the leading global crops. The value of wild pollinators to crop pollination has become increasingly well understood concurrently as wild bee populations have been declining globally due to anthropogenic stressors. Research on supporting wild pollinator populations has begun to highlight the role of adequate natural area cover which my study investigates at scales up to 2km in a high-value crop in Canada. Wild bee abundance and species richness were measured in 14 apple orchards in southern Ontario from 2018-2019. While the proportion of natural area did not influence wild bee abundance and diversity, wild bee abundance positively correlated to increased diversity of landscapes within 500m of farm centres, indicating a relationship between pollinator habitats and landscape diversity. These results can potentially be used to guide farmers and policymakers wishing to positively impact pollinator populations.

The Pollination Services Of Forests

DOWNLOAD
Author : Krishnan, S., Wiederkehr Guerra, G., Bertrand, D., Wertz-Kanounnikoff, S. and Kettle, C.J.
language : en
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
Release Date : 2020-06-01

The Pollination Services Of Forests written by Krishnan, S., Wiederkehr Guerra, G., Bertrand, D., Wertz-Kanounnikoff, S. and Kettle, C.J. and has been published by Food & Agriculture Org. this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020-06-01 with Technology & Engineering categories.

Most flowering plants, including wild species and many food crops, are pollinated by animals and are vital, therefore, for biological production and the maintenance of biodiversity. Pollinators benefit from diverse natural habitats for forage and nesting, especially when these are limited in plant production systems. Landscape and forest management practices can help ensure the continued availability of pollinators and thereby increase resilience and the productivity of forestry and agriculture. The extent of forests and other natural habitats in a landscape plays a role in determining the species composition of pollinators. Agricultural landscapes adjoining fragmented forests and natural areas benefit from pollinator services, and animal-pollinated crops therefore achieve higher fruit set. Forest management practices can have significant effects on pollinator abundance and diversity. They affect forest variables such as structure, species composition, soil dynamics, hydrology and light availability, all of which can affect pollinator species composition and diversity and plant–pollinator networks. Indigenous and local knowledge can contribute to the conservation of pollinators through traditional management practices. This working paper, which is aimed at forest practitioners, landscape planners and land-use decision-makers, reviews published literature on the impacts of forest and landscape management practices on pollinators. It also addresses the implications of climate change, collates 36 case studies, and makes recommendation on measures for maintaining pollinator diversity and abundance in forests and landscapes

Pollinators And Pollination

DOWNLOAD
Author : Jeff Ollerton
language : en
Publisher: Pelagic Publishing Ltd
Release Date : 2021-01-18

Pollinators And Pollination written by Jeff Ollerton and has been published by Pelagic Publishing Ltd this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2021-01-18 with Science categories.

A unique and personal insight into the ecology and evolution of pollinators, their relationships with flowers, and their conservation in a rapidly changing world. The pollination of flowers by insects, birds and other animals is a fundamentally important ecological function that supports both the natural world and human society. Without pollinators to facilitate the sexual reproduction of plants, the world would be a biologically poorer place in which to live, there would be an impact on food security, and human health would suffer. Written by one of the world’s leading pollination ecologists, this book provides an introduction to what pollinators are, how their interactions with flowers have evolved, and the fundamental ecology of these relationships. It explores the pollination of wild and agricultural plants in a variety of habitats and contexts, including urban, rural and agricultural environments. The author also provides practical advice on how individuals and organisations can study, and support, pollinators. As well as covering the natural history of pollinators and flowers, the author discusses their cultural importance, and the ways in which pollinator conservation has been portrayed from a political perspective. The book draws on field work experiences in South America, Africa, Australia, the Canary Islands and the UK. For over 30 years the author has spent his career researching how plants and pollinators evolve relationships, how these interactions function ecologically, their importance for society, and how we can conserve them in a rapidly changing world. This book offers a unique and personal insight into the science of pollinators and pollination, aimed at anyone who is interested in understanding these fascinating and crucial ecological interactions.

Landscape Effects On Bee Pollinators In A Tropical Agroecosystem

DOWNLOAD
Author : Levi Keesecker
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2017

Landscape Effects On Bee Pollinators In A Tropical Agroecosystem written by Levi Keesecker and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017 with Agricultural landscape management categories.

Land-use change and intensification are among the most important drivers of species loss and the degradation of ecosystem functions. Agricultural areas occupy nearly 40% of the Earth's surface, thus efforts to mitigate the ecological effects of land-use intensification should focus in part on utilizing more sustainable food production practices that enhance species persistence within farms. Bees (superfamily Apoidea) are widely considered the most important pollinators globally for both wild plant pollination and agricultural production. Global declines of managed and wild bees threaten the delivery of pollination services to agriculture. In my first two chapters, I present results of research conducted in a coffee-dominated agricultural landscape in Costa Rica. I explore the extent to which coffee farm intensity (e.g., "sun" coffee vs. "shade" coffee) affects bee community dynamics. Chapter 1 focuses on how land-use intensity mediates the distribution and relative abundance of bee functional traits that are thought to be important for pollination. Chapter 2 explores how land-use context within an agroecosystem affects bee diversity and stability at the community scale. Both functional diversity, and diversity-stability relationships are community patterns that have been demonstrated to have a mechanistic relationship to ecosystem functioning (e.g., pollination). We found that landscape context does influence functional trait distributions and relative abundance in bee communities in a coffee agroecosystem, implying that landscape context moderates the trait composition of bee communities. Further, we found that the traits that responded to landscape elements are traits considered important for delivery of pollination services within farms. We also elucidate how landscape-scale intensification of coffee agroforestry practices reduces community-scale stability of bees by synchronizing their populations through time. My third chapter is framed within the heuristic of "Social-Ecological Systems" as part of the University of Idaho's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program. Here my co-authors and I show that natural resource management challenges may be aided by embarking on a thorough exploration of the spatio-temporal scales at which biophysical processes and natural resource governance operate, with an emphasis on spatio-temporal scale "mis-fit" (i.e., when biophysical processes that provision a resource are managed at improper scales).

Wild Bees And Agroecosystems

DOWNLOAD
Author : Lora A. Morandin
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2005

Wild Bees And Agroecosystems written by Lora A. Morandin and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2005 with Bees categories.

Research in agriculture often focuses on development of new technologies rather than on potential environmental impacts. Pollinators, primarily bees, are essential to agriculture, providing significant yield benefit in over 66% of crop species. Currently, dramatic losses of managed honey bee pollinators in North America along with suspected world-wide losses of wild pollinators are focusing research attention on an impending but still poorly documented pollination crisis. Essential questions include: How important are wild bees to crop production? Are current agricultural practices harming pollinator populations? Can agricultural methods be modified in ways that promote pollinators and food production? In this thesis I examine the interaction between modern agriculture and wild bees through 1) laboratory experiments on effects of new genetically modified (GM), systemic, and bio-pest control products on bumble bee (Bombus spp.) health and foraging ability, and 2) field experiments on the impacts of agricultural landscapes on wild bee abundance, diversity, and pollination efficacy. I developed a new method of assessing bee foraging after exposure to pesticides that is a useful and sensitive test for sub-lethal impacts on pollinators. The GM pesticidal proteins Bt Cry1 Ac and chitinase did not negatively affect bumble bee colony or individual health or foraging ability. However, the pesticide imidacloprid in the new chloronicotinoid family of pesticides impaired bee foraging when bees were exposed to elevated doses during larval development. The new biopesticide spinosad, which is widely marketed and approved as an organic insecticide, rapidly killed bumble bee colonies at elevated doses and impaired foraging ability at realistic exposure rates. In field studies, herbicide-tolerant genetically modified canola agroecosystems had fewer wild bees than organic fields, and there were an intermediate number of bees in conventional fields. Low bee abundance in GM fields and to a lesser extent, conventional fields was associated with low seed set and reduced yields. Weed cover in fields and amount of uncultivated land around fields were positively related to bee abundance in fields. We determined that crop landscapes with uncultivated areas could have greater yield than homogenously tilled landscapes. These data can be used to design agroecosystems that benefit both conservation and crop production.

The Effects Of Agricultural Practices On Native Bee Community Structure And Highbush Blueberry Crop Production

DOWNLOAD
Author : Melanie Joanne Fabian
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2014

The Effects Of Agricultural Practices On Native Bee Community Structure And Highbush Blueberry Crop Production written by Melanie Joanne Fabian and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014 with Agricultural ecology categories.

Agroecological Transformations

DOWNLOAD
Author : Erin Barnes Lowe
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2022

Agroecological Transformations written by Erin Barnes Lowe and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2022 with categories.

There is growing recognition that the dominant agricultural system is not working for people or for the environment and that there is an urgent need for transformation. This dissertation explores one aspect of what that transformation could look like and how to make it happen. The first two chapters focus on the effects of diversified agroecological landscapes as an alternative to large-scale monocultures. Chapter 1 focuses on the impact of increasing flower availability in crop field edges, a common strategy for supporting wild bee conservation and crop pollination. In one of the two years of the study, we found positive effects of increasing flower availability in crop field edges independent of the amount of natural area in surrounding landscapes. We also found that leaving existing flowers (i.e., not removing them via herbicide or mowing) may matter more than planting flowers for increasing local wild bee abundance, richness, and crop pollination. Adding additional flowers was found to improve the nesting success of stem-nesting bees. Chapter 2 details an R package we built to quantify the impact of landscape-scale variables on local responses. This package was developed to evaluate the impact of non-crop habitat on wild bees in Chapter 1, but it can also be used to understand the impact of other landscape-scale variables on a range of responses. The third chapter addresses bigger-picture questions of how to alter socio-political structures in ways that enable transformational change toward diversified agricultural systems (such as those explored in Chapter 1) and empower farmers, communities, and the environment. To explore these questions, we conducted 127 interviews and 3 participatory workshops with farmers and other members of the agricultural community in the Midwestern United States and evaluated what is needed to make such change in the Midwest region. Based on the interviews and workshops, we found that if the goal is to achieve transformational change, more effort within the Midwest sustainable agriculture movement should shift toward providing social supports for farmers and farmworkers, addressing land and capital consolidation, and altering social norms around the type of agriculture that is valued. Through researching questions aimed at helping farmers establish agroecological management practices and understanding the changes to socio-political structures needed to support them, this dissertation illuminates some of the elements necessary to make transformational change.

Bee Diversity Pollination And Fruit Production In Strawberry Agroecosystems

DOWNLOAD
Author : Gail MacInnis
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2020

Bee Diversity Pollination And Fruit Production In Strawberry Agroecosystems written by Gail MacInnis and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020 with categories.

"The conversion of a natural ecosystem to an agroecosystem characteristically involves a reduction in biodiversity. As agricultural intensification continues, it is vital to understand how biodiversity loss in farmlands affects the ecosystem functions, such as pollination, required to maintain crop production. A diversity of wild bee species inhabit agricultural lands, and high species richness within crop pollinator assemblages has been linked to enhanced crop yields; however, species richness is often confounded with abundance in studies of pollinator communities. In addition, direct comparisons of pollinator performance among individual bee species have been limited by methodological constraints, which make it challenging to predict how yield will be affected by changes in pollinator community composition. The overarching goal of this thesis is to explore the influence of bee species identity and community composition on pollination and production in agroecosystems, and to examine how elements of agricultural landscapes impact bee communities.I first compared the performance of wild bees and honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) as pollinators of strawberry, through the use of a new pollen deposition measurement technique and controlled bee diversity field experiments. I found that honey bees and wild bees deposited the same amount of pollen per visited flower, but wild bee-pollinated strawberries were larger than honey bee-pollinated strawberries. This suggests that wild bees transferred higher quality (outcross) pollen than honey bees. As the distance travelled by pollinators between successive flower visits can affect the quality of pollen transferred among plants, I then examined foraging behaviour as a mechanism driving this effect. I found that wild bees, especially those in the genus Lasioglossum, foraged more erratically, provided more cross-pollination, and produced larger fruit than honey bees for certain strawberry varieties and field designs. Although wild bees show promise as strawberry pollinators, conventional cultivation methods may limit wild bee abundance on strawberry farms. The ground within most commercial strawberry fields is covered with straw, and increasingly with plastic mulch. This reduces habitat for ground-nesting bees within the crop, so most wild pollinators need to enter the crop from beyond field margins. To examine the influence of field-margin type (forest or hedgerow) on bee community composition and pollinator export to strawberry crops, I conducted bee diversity surveys on 12 farms, from crop edge to crop centre. I found that wild bee species richness and abundance did not differ between field-margin types. Small wild bee abundance declined significantly from the crop margin to crop centre but pollen deposition did not, which suggests that large-bodied and managed bees were providing the majority of pollination. Although my previous work indicates that small wild bees are more effective pollinators of strawberry on a per-visit basis, their limited foraging ranges suggest they may only pollinate marginal areas, given typical field sizes in our region.My overall findings showed that honey bee pollination results in lower strawberry yields than wild bee pollination. Management efforts aimed at the maintenance or enhancement of wild pollinator populations may be a cost-effective way to increase both crop yield and biodiversity on strawberry farms. However, species richness did not affect pollination for the strawberries studied here, which highlights that the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services are not always equivalent"--