77
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      Crop pollination from native bees at risk from agricultural intensification.

      Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
      Animals, Bees, physiology, Crops, Agricultural, Ecosystem, Pollen, Risk

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Ecosystem services are critical to human survival; in selected cases, maintaining these services provides a powerful argument for conserving biodiversity. Yet, the ecological and economic underpinnings of most services are poorly understood, impeding their conservation and management. For centuries, farmers have imported colonies of European honey bees (Apis mellifera) to fields and orchards for pollination services. These colonies are becoming increasingly scarce, however, because of diseases, pesticides, and other impacts. Native bee communities also provide pollination services, but the amount they provide and how this varies with land management practices are unknown. Here, we document the individual species and aggregate community contributions of native bees to crop pollination, on farms that varied both in their proximity to natural habitat and management type (organic versus conventional). On organic farms near natural habitat, we found that native bee communities could provide full pollination services even for a crop with heavy pollination requirements (e.g., watermelon, Citrullus lanatus), without the intervention of managed honey bees. All other farms, however, experienced greatly reduced diversity and abundance of native bees, resulting in insufficient pollination services from native bees alone. We found that diversity was essential for sustaining the service, because of year-to-year variation in community composition. Continued degradation of the agro-natural landscape will destroy this "free" service, but conservation and restoration of bee habitat are potentially viable economic alternatives for reducing dependence on managed honey bees.

          Related collections

          Most cited references17

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          Linking biodiversity to ecosystem function: implications for conservation ecology

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            Effects of habitat isolation on pollinator communities and seed set

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Parasitic mites of honey bees: life history, implications, and impact.

              The hive of the honey bee is a suitable habitat for diverse mites (Acari), including nonparasitic, omnivorous, and pollen-feeding species, and parasites. The biology and damage of the three main pest species Acarapis woodi, Varroa jacobsoni, and Tropilaelaps clareae is reviewed, along with detection and control methods. The hypothesis that Acarapis woodi is a recently evolved species is rejected. Mite-associated bee pathologies (mostly viral) also cause increasing losses to apiaries. Future studies on bee mites are beset by three main problems: (a) The recent discovery of several new honey bee species and new bee-parasitizing mite species (along with the probability that several species are masquerading under the name Varroa jacobsoni) may bring about new bee-mite associations and increase damage to beekeeping; (b) methods for studying bee pathologies caused by viruses are still largely lacking; (c) few bee- and consumer-friendly methods for controlling bee mites in large apiaries are available.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                12486221
                139226
                10.1073/pnas.262413599

                Chemistry
                Animals,Bees,physiology,Crops, Agricultural,Ecosystem,Pollen,Risk
                Chemistry
                Animals, Bees, physiology, Crops, Agricultural, Ecosystem, Pollen, Risk

                Comments

                Comment on this article