Landscape and agricultural management effects on pollinator communities of pastures and arable fields
Abstract
Recently, one of the most important areas of the ecosystem related studies is pollination ecology, a regulatory ecosystem service. The study of pollination systems, exposed to growing agricultural pressure as a result of global biodiversity loss, is outstanding, since the third of the agriculturally and economically important crops is pollinated by animals. We studied the effects of topographical complexity, landscape heterogeneity and wood cover on pollinator communities in arable fields and grasslands in Szászföld, Transylvania in a three months long sampling period. We tested the effects of landscape variables, the number of flowering plant species and flower units on the abundance of different pollinator groups, sampled by transect walking method using general linear mixed effect models.
The observed wild bees and butterflies were more abundant in pastures, while bumblebees and hoverflies were more common in arable fields. The greater the wood cover was, the higher was the abundance of butterflies, while the lower topographic complexity areas showed higher butterfly abundance. Regarding temporal dynamics, the abundance of pollinators was the highest in July and the lowest in May. Our results demonstrate the vegetation preference of the different pollinator groups. Our findings clearly illustrate the importance of landscape and flower resources in the habitat preference of the pollinator groups.
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