scholarly journals The Attractiveness of Five Common Mediterranean Weeds to Pollinators

Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1314
Author(s):  
Jane Morrison ◽  
Jordi Izquierdo ◽  
Eva Hernández Plaza ◽  
José L. González-Andújar
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effective ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Weed Species ◽  
Convolvulus Arvensis ◽  
Daucus Carota L ◽  
Pollinator Abundance ◽  
Pollinator Conservation ◽  
Abundance And Diversity ◽  
Flower Visiting

Concerns about a global decline in pollinators have called for more knowledge about the factors influencing wild pollinator abundance and diversity in agroecosystems. Agricultural intensification has been identified as the main cause of this “global pollinator crisis”, particularly due to reductions in natural areas holding critical floral and nesting resources. Maintaining native wild plants in agricultural landscapes (e.g., in field margins) is often recommended as a cost-effective and efficient method for pollinator conservation. In this study, the role of common wild flowers, often considered weeds, in supporting pollinators in a Mediterranean agroecosystem was investigated. This work involved a two-year field trial to compare five native weed species common in Mediterranean cereal agroecosystems: Convolvulus arvensis L., Daucus carota L., Malva sylvestris L., Papaver rhoeas L., and Sonchus oleraceus L. The goal was to compare the attractiveness of these species, and a mixture of all five, to different flower-visiting insect groups in order to assess their value in supporting wild pollinators. Overall, D. carota had the highest number of insect visits, followed by P. rhoeas. C. arvensis, M. sylvestris, and S. oleraceus, which had lower numbers of visits. On the basis of their overall attractiveness to pollinators and low risk for invasiveness, D. carota, P. rhoeas, and M. sylvestris are the most likely to contribute positively to the conservation of pollinators in agroecosystems. Our results also suggest that it is advantageous for wild flowers sown for the purpose of pollinator conservation to be grown in clumps, rather than highly intermingled, for improved visitation rates.

scholarly journals The best wildflowers for wild bees

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 819-830 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel N. Nichols ◽  
Dave Goulson ◽  
John M. Holland
Keyword(s):  
Native Bees ◽  
Convolvulus Arvensis ◽  
Wild Bees ◽  
Pollinator Abundance ◽  
Wild Bee ◽  
Anthyllis Vulneraria ◽  
Important Food Source ◽  
Abundance And Diversity ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Species Being

Abstract Governmental agri-environment schemes (AES) aim to improve pollinator abundance and diversity on farmland by sowing wildflower seed mixes. These often contain high proportions of Fabaceae, particularly Trifolium (clovers), which are attractive to some bumblebee species, but not to most of the ~ 240 solitary bee species in the UK. Here we identify wildflowers that are attractive to a greater range of wild bee species. Forty-five wildflower species being farmed for commercial seed production on a single farm were surveyed for native bees. Bee walks were conducted through discrete wildflower areas from April until August in 2018. The results indicate that including a range of Apiaceae, Asteraceae, and Geraniaceae in seed mixes would cater for a wide diversity of bee species. A total of 14 wildflower species across nine families attracted 37 out of the 40 bee species recorded on the farm, and accounted for 99.7% of all visitations. Only two of these 14 species are included in current AES pollinator mixes. Unexpectedly, few visits were made by bumblebees to Trifolium spp. (0.5%), despite their being considered an important food source for bumblebees, while Anthyllis vulneraria and Geranium pratense were highly attractive. For solitary bees, Crepis capillaris, Sinapsis arvensis, Convolvulus arvensis and Chaerophyllum temulum were amongst the best performing species, none of which are usually included in sown flower mixes. We suggest that the standard ‘pollinator’ mixes used in AES might be updated to include some of these wildflower species, and trialled as seed mixes on farmland.

scholarly journals Flower Strips in Wheat Intercropping System: Effect on Pollinator Abundance and Diversity in Belgium

Insects ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Amy ◽  
Grégoire Noël ◽  
Séverin Hatt ◽  
Roel Uyttenbroeck ◽  
Frank Van de Meutter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Insect Pests ◽  
Triticum Aestivum L ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
System Effect ◽  
Pollinator Abundance ◽  
Pollinator Species ◽  
Pollinator Community ◽  
Abundance And Diversity ◽  
Agricultural Areas

The decline of pollinators in agricultural areas has been observed for some decades, this being partly due to landscape simplification in intensive agrosystems. Diversifying agricultural landscapes by sowing flower strips within fields could reduce these adverse effects on biodiversity. In this context, the study presented here aimed at assessing and comparing the abundance and diversity of bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila) and hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) found and visiting flowers in three types of flower strips in Belgium: (i) a mixture of 11 wild flowers, (ii) a monofloral strip of Dimorphoteca pluvialis (Asteraceae) and (iii) a monofloral strip of Camelina sativa (Brassicaceae), where the last two are considered to be intercrops since they are valuable on the market, all sown within a field of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Pollinators were captured with pan traps and by netting in standardised transects from May to July 2017. One-thousand one-hundred and eighty-four individuals belonging to 43 bee species and 18 hoverfly species were collected. Significant differences in hoverfly diversity were found between the different flower strips. The multifloral treatment supported a greater diversity of syrphid species. Various pollinator species visited the different flowers composing the mixture and also D. pluvialis. The pollinator community proved to be predominantly generalist, with the exception of an oligolectic species in Belgium, Andrena nitidiuscula. Moreover, the three tested flower strips were effective in attracting hoverflies, among them natural enemies of insect pests. This study opens new perspectives in the design of intercropping systems with flower strips towards the design of sustainable agro-ecosystems. Improving economic profitability of sowing flower strips could encourage farmers to diversify their agricultural systems and foster conservation biology strategies.

scholarly journals Pollen report: quantitative review of pollen crude protein concentrations offered by bee pollinated flowers in agricultural and non-agricultural landscapes

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Pamminger ◽  
Roland Becker ◽  
Sophie Himmelreich ◽  
Christof W. Schneider ◽  
Matthias Bergtold
Keyword(s):  
Crude Protein ◽  
Protein Concentration ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Weed Species ◽  
Pollen Quality ◽  
Protein Levels ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Native Bee

To ease nutritional stress on managed as well as native bee populations in agricultural habitats, agro-environmental protection schemes aim to provide alternative nutritional resources for bee populations during times of need. However, such efforts have so far focused on quantity (supply of flowering plants) and timing (flower-scarce periods) while ignoring the quality of the two main bee relevant flower-derived resources (pollen and nectar). As a first step to address this issue we have compiled one geographically explicit dataset focusing on pollen crude protein concentration, one measurement traditionally associated with pollen quality for bees. We attempt to provide a robust baseline for protein levels bees can collect in- (crop and weed species) and off-field (wild plants) in agricultural habitats around the globe. Using this dataset we identify crops which provide sub-optimal pollen resources in terms of crude protein concentration for bees and suggest potential plant genera that could serve as alternative resources for protein. This information could be used by scientists, regulators, bee keepers, NGOs and farmers to compare the pollen quality currently offered in alternative foraging habitats and identify opportunities to improve them. In the long run, we hope that additional markers of pollen quality will be added to the database in order to get a more complete picture of flower resources offered to bees and foster a data-informed discussion about pollinator conservation in modern agricultural landscapes.

scholarly journals Flowers in Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) Pollinator Plantings and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Landscape Supporting Honey Bees

Insects ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 405
Author(s):  
Harper McMinn-Sauder ◽  
Rodney Richardson ◽  
Tyler Eaton ◽  
Mike Smith ◽  
Reed Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Honey Bee ◽  
Honey Bees ◽  
Agricultural Landscape ◽  
Conservation Reserve Program ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Floral Resources ◽  
Pollinator Abundance ◽  
Abundance And Diversity ◽  
Honey Bee Nutrition

A present goal of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is to manage land in agricultural landscapes to increase pollinator abundance and diversity. CP42, or the pollinator seed mix, is planted and managed to support foraging pollinators with blooming flowers present at all points in the foraging season. This high-quality habitat provides an excellent opportunity to study honey bee nutrition and determine whether honey bees located near CRP sites use known resources included in planting seed mixes. This study aims to highlight the primary sources of honey bee forage in the northern Midwest as well as to assess honey bee utilization of the floral resources provided by the pollinator seed mix used for CRP plantings. We received pollen samples collected using pollen traps by beekeepers in Ohio, South Dakota, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Metabarcoding methods were used to identify and quantify pollen collected at different points in the season. The results indicate that honey bees frequently used major mass flowering resources such as Glycine, Trifolium, and Symphiotrichum throughout the season. In addition, flowers included in the CRP pollinator seed mix were used modestly. These results have implications for pollinator seed mix design.

scholarly journals Abundance and diversity of edible wild plants in managed boreal forests

2021 ◽  
Vol 491 ◽  
pp. 119151
Author(s):  
Tähti Pohjanmies ◽  
Anni Jašková ◽  
Juha-Pekka Hotanen ◽  
Outi Manninen ◽  
Maija Salemaa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forests ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Edible Wild Plants ◽  
Abundance And Diversity

Aminocyclopyrachlor Absorption, Translocation and Metabolism in Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)

Weed Science ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Bradley Lindenmayer ◽  
Scott J. Nissen ◽  
Philip P. Westra ◽  
Dale L. Shaner ◽  
Galen Brunk
Keyword(s):  
Plant Tissue ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Plant Tissues ◽  
Laboratory Studies ◽  
Weed Species ◽  
Convolvulus Arvensis ◽  
Single Leaf ◽  
Field Bindweed ◽  
Treated Leaf ◽  
Aboveground Tissue

Field bindweed is extremely susceptible to aminocyclopyrachlor compared to other weed species. Laboratory studies were conducted to determine if absorption, translocation, and metabolism of aminocyclopyrachlor in field bindweed differs from other, less susceptible species. Field bindweed plants were treated with 3.3 kBq14C-aminocyclopyrachlor by spotting a single leaf mid-way up the stem with 10 µl of herbicide solution. Plants were then harvested at set intervals over 192 h after treatment (HAT). Aminocyclopyrachlor absorption reached a maximum of 48.3% of the applied radioactivity by 48 HAT. A translocation pattern of herbicide movement from the treated leaf into other plant tissues emerged, revealing a nearly equal aminocyclopyrachlor distribution between the treated leaf, aboveground tissue, and belowground tissue of 13, 14, and 14% of the applied radioactivity by 192 HAT. Over the time-course, no soluble aminocyclopyrachlor metabolites were observed, but there was an increase in radioactivity recovered bound in the nonsoluble fraction. These results suggest that aminocyclopyrachlor has greater translocation to belowground plant tissue in field bindweed compared with results from other studies with other herbicides and other weed species, which could explain the increased level of control observed in the field. The lack of soluble metabolites also suggests that very little metabolism occurred over the 192 h time course.

scholarly journals EXAMINATION OF THE WEED FLORA OF RUDER HABITATS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF SUPPRESSION WITH HERBICIDES

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-332
Author(s):  
Milić Vojinović ◽  
Jelica Živić ◽  
Sanja Perić ◽  
Miroljub Aksić
Keyword(s):  
Chenopodium Album ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Xanthium Strumarium ◽  
Weed Species ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Convolvulus Arvensis ◽  
Human Settlements ◽  
Time Of Application ◽  
Vegetation Complex ◽  
Selection Of

Ruderal flora, as well as the vegetation that flora forms, represent an extremely dynamic floristic-vegetation complex and arean integral part of the most immediate living and working environment of human. It is formed and developed mainly in human settlements, as well as in the other anthropogenic environments that are occasionally or permanently under direct or indirect influence of various forms of human activity. Ruderal vegetation is found not only directly around the settlements, but also around all urban and accompanying facilities: along roads, paths and fences around houses, yards, walls and roofs, in avenues, on ruins, construction sites, landfills, along railway tracks, road and defense embankments, on wet and nitrified banks of rivers, near human settlements, in abandoned lawns, on the street walks with sandy areas, cemeteries, in degraded pastures, forests, etc. This essay presents the distribution and representation of economically harmful, invasive and quarantine weed species (Abutilon theophrasti, Agropyrumrepens, Amaranthusretroflexus, Calystegiasepium, Cirsiumarvense, Chenopodium album, Chenopodiumhybridum, Convolvulus arvensis, Cynodondactylon, Daturastramonium, Sonchusarvensis, Sorghum halepense, Xanthium strumarium…) at ten sites in the Nisava district. The assessment of species representation was done in two shootings (May and August) according to scale 1-4. The proper selection of herbicides depends, in a large extent, on the presence of dominant weed species and on the time of application.

scholarly journals Combining whole genome shotgun sequencing and rDNA amplicon analyses to improve detection of microbe-microbe interaction networks in plant leaves

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Regalado ◽  
Derek S. Lundberg ◽  
Oliver Deusch ◽  
Sonja Kersten ◽  
Talia Karasov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
16S Rdna ◽  
High Throughput Sequencing ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Amplicon Sequencing ◽  
Low Complexity ◽  
Shotgun Sequencing ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Hybrid Strategy ◽  
Domains Of Life ◽  
Metagenome Sequencing

AbstractMicroorganisms from all domains of life establish associations with plants. Although some harm the plant, others antagonize pathogens or prime the plant immune system, acquire nutrients, tune plant hormone levels, or perform additional services. Most culture-independent plant microbiome research has focused on amplicon sequencing of 16S rDNA and/or the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of rDNA loci, but the decreasing cost of high-throughput sequencing has made shotgun metagenome sequencing increasingly accessible. Here, we describe shotgun sequencing of 275 wild Arabidopsis thaliana leaf microbiomes from southwest Germany, with additional bacterial 16S rDNA and eukaryotic ITS1 amplicon data from 176 of these samples. The shotgun data were dominated by bacterial sequences, with eukaryotes contributing only a minority of reads. For shotgun and amplicon data, microbial membership showed weak associations with both site of origin and plant genotype, both of which were highly confounded in this dataset. There was large variation among microbiomes, with one extreme comprising samples of low complexity and a high load of microorganisms typical of infected plants, and the other extreme being samples of high complexity and a low microbial load. We use the metagenome data, which captures the ratio of bacterial to plant DNA in leaves of wild plants, to scale the 16S rDNA amplicon data such that they reflect absolute bacterial abundance. We show that this cost-effective hybrid strategy overcomes compositionality problems in amplicon data and leads to fundamentally different conclusions about microbiome community assembly.

scholarly journals The need for coordinated transdisciplinary research infrastructures for pollinator conservation and crop pollination resilience

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignasi Bartomeus ◽  
Lynn Dicks
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Transdisciplinary Research ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Pollinator Decline ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research Infrastructures ◽  
Pollinator Conservation ◽  
The Status ◽  
Agricultural Areas ◽  
Pollinator Declines

There is a growing concern about the status and trends of animal pollinators worldwide. Pollinators provide a key service to both wild plants and crops by mediating their reproduction, so pollinator conservation is of fundamental importance to conservation and to food production. Understanding of the extent of pollinator declines is constrained by the paucity of accessible data, which leads to geographically- and taxonomically-biased assessments. In addition, land conversion to agriculture and intensive agricultural management are two of the main threats to pollinators. This is paradoxical, as crop production depends on pollinators to maximize productivity. There is a need to reconcile conservation and ecosystem service provision in agroecosystems. These challenges require coordinated transdisciplinary research infrastructures. Specifically, we need better research infrastructures to (i) describe pollinator decline patterns worldwide, (ii) monitor current pollinator trends, and (iii) understand how to enhance pollinators and pollination in agroecosystems. This can be achieved, first, by redoubling the efforts to make historical occurrence data on species occurrences, interactions and traits openly available and easy to integrate across databases. Second, by empowering citizen science to monitor key pollinator species in a coordinated way and standardizing and consolidating long term collection protocols both in natural and agricultural areas. Finally, there is a need to develop multi-actor, localised research infrastructures allowing integration of social, economic and ecological approaches in agriculture. We illustrate how decentralized infrastructures can accelerate the process of co-producing research and integrating data collection across scientists, managers, members of the public, farmers and disciplines. The time is ripe to harness the power of coordinated research infrastructures to understand and mitigate pollinator declines.

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