452 Results Found

(1) Modern, intensive agricultural practices have been attributed to the loss of insect biodiversity and abundance in agroecosystems for the last 80 years. The aim of this work is to test whether there are statistically significant differences in ins...

Agricultural intensification has led to significant declines in beneficial insect populations, such as pollinators and natural enemies, along with their ecosystem services. The installation of perennial flower margins in farmland is a popular agri-en...

Osmia spp. are excellent orchard pollinators but evidence that their populations can be sustained in orchard environments and their use results in increased fruit production is scarce. We released an Osmia cornuta population in an almond orchard and...

Stable pollination by honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) is essential for the reliable production of strawberries cultivated in winter greenhouses in Korea. Few studies focused on the management of pollination hives within greenhouses during flowering. Th...

The efficacy of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs), Steinernema feltiae and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, for controlling Frankliniella occidentalis (Thysanoptera: Thripidae, Pergande, 1895) in nectarine orchards, was evaluated, alongside their poten...

The use patterns and role of insecticide seed treatments, with focus on neonicotinoid insecticides, were examined for canola/oilseed rape production in Canada and the EU. Since nearly all planted canola acres in Western Canada and, historically, a ma...

Australian horticulture relies heavily on the introduced managed honey bee, Apis mellifera Linnaeus 1758 (Hymenoptera: Apidae), to pollinate crops. Given the risks associated with reliance upon a single species, it would be prudent to identify other...

Apples depend on insect pollination but intensification of agriculture jeopardizes pollination services in agroecosystems. Concerns about the dependency of crop pollination exclusively on honey bees increase the interest in agricultural practices tha...

The addition of floral resources is a common intervention to support the adult life stages of key crop pollinators. Fly (Diptera) crop pollinators, however, typically do not require floral resources in their immature life stages and are likely not su...

There is growing interest in urban pollinator communities, although they may be subject to biotic homogenization in densely artificial landscapes. Paris (France) is one of the densest cities in the world, yet over the years many insect pollinator spe...

Recent declines in insect pollinators and the increasing dependence on insect pollination in agriculture present major challenges to ensuring future food production. As part of the effort to deal with this challenge, there is a pressing need to under...

Beneficial insect populations and the services that they provide are in decline, largely due to agricultural land use and practices. Establishing perennial floral plantings in the unused margins of crop fields can help conserve beneficial pollinators...

In the last decades, pollinators have drastically declined as a consequence of anthropogenic activities that have local and global impacts. The food industry has been expanding intensive agriculture crops, many of them dependent on animal pollination...

Studies show that agricultural land requires investment in the habitat management of non-cropped areas to support healthy beneficial arthropods and the ecosystem services they provide. In a previous small plot study, we manually counted blooms over t...

In a two-year experiment, we examined whether increasing plant diversity in the margins of processing tomato fields could attract pollinators and natural enemies of pests compared to weed flora, and questioned the effect on crop yield. Two plant mixt...

Common eastern bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) play an essential role in pollinating lowbush blueberries (LB) in northern Quebec, but their costs and the suboptimal weather conditions during pollination highlight the need to find appropriate h...

Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) characterizes and dominates the sagebrush steppe, the largest temperate semi-desert ecosystem in North America. The beneficial arthropod fauna hosted by A. tridentata is poorly known but could be of importance to...

Wild ground-nesting bees are key pollinators of apple (Malus domestica). We explored, (1) where they choose to nest, (2) what influences site selection and (3) species richness in orchards. Twenty-three orchards were studied over three years; twelve...

Intensive agricultural practices leading to habitat degradation represent a major threat to pollinators. Diverse management practices are expected to influence wild pollinator abundance and richness on farms, although their effect in perennial crops...

Human-driven land use change and intensification is a major threat to global biodiversity. High levels of land management intensity may reduce species diversity, change the composition and structure of plant and animal communities and disrupt ecologi...

Melon is among the most consumed fruits in the world, being a crop that depends almost entirely on insects for its reproduction, which is why it is especially sensitive to declining pollination services. Restoration and maintenance of hedgerows and a...

The entomophilous pollination niche (abundance, phenotypic traits, foraging behaviours and environmental tolerances of insect pollinators) helps to understand and better manage crop pollination. We apply this niche approach to assess how an entomophi...

Factors such as extreme temperatures, light radiation, and nutritional condition influence the physiological, biochemical, and molecular processes associated with fruit development and its quality. Besides abiotic stresses, biotic constraints can als...

In hybrid sunflower, bee pollination can improve productivity, but the contribution of bees to productivity may be over or underestimated. To estimate bee effects (seed trait gains from exposure to bees during anthesis), single capitula are commonly...

Populations of the U.S. threatened orchid, Platanthera leucophaea, are restricted to fragmented grassland and wetland habitats. We address the long-term (1998–2020) interactive effects of habitat (upland prairie vs. wetland), fire management (burned...

Flowering, the beginning of the reproductive growth, is a significant stage in the growth and development of plants. Conifers are economically and ecologically important, characterized by straight trunks and a good wood quality and, thus, conifer pla...

Recently, the concept of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) was further extended into Integrated Pest and Pollinator Management (IPPM). Implementation of IPPM strategies entails the combination of actions for pest and pollinator management providing co...

While olive trees are primarily wind-pollinated, biodiversity-friendly management of the groves can contribute to the conservation of pollinating insects in olive agroecosystems. Previous research demonstrated that semi-natural habitats, such as herb...

In this paper, a Flower Pollination Algorithm (FPA) has been proposed for relieving congestion in the deregulated power electricity industry. Congestion in the power market is one the contemplative challenges to be overcome in the era of deregulation...

The preservation and restoration of habitats and ecological connectivity inside cities is crucial to ensure wildlife can find suitable areas to forage, rest and reproduce, as well as to disperse, thereby allowing metapopulation functioning. In this s...

Maine is the largest producer of wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Aiton) in the United States. Pollination comes from combinations of honey bees (Apis mellifera (L.)), commercial bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson), and wild bees. This stud...

Data collection, storage, analysis, visualization, and dissemination are changing rapidly due to advances in new technologies driven by computer science and universal access to the internet. These technologies and web connections place human observer...

Flavonoids have multiple functions, including host-plant defense against attacks from herbivorous insects. This manuscript reviewed and analyzed the scientific literature to test the hypothesis that flavonoids can be utilized to manage pests without...

Grassland ecosystems, managed by various grassland managements strategies, are the world’s most important land use. However, insect’s sex-specific responses within the context of grassland management have never been considered before. The...

Intensively-managed pine (Pinus spp.) have been shown to support diverse vertebrate communities, but their ability to support invertebrate communities, such as wild bees, has not been well-studied. Recently, researchers have examined intercropping sw...

Many of the most nutritionally and economically important edible insects are those that are harvested from existing agricultural systems. Current strategies of agricultural intensification focus predominantly on increasing crop yields, with no or lit...

In various orchard fruit trees, thinning of blossoms and fruits is important to increase fruit size and quality and to promote a new bloom in the following season. Several chemical thinning agents are currently commercially available, but they are in...

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...

Urbanization is rapidly influencing the abundance and diversity of arthropods. Within urban systems, managed turfgrass is a prominent land cover which can support only a limited number of arthropod groups. To allow for more arthropod biodiversity and...

Conservation organizations with common missions can find strength and synergy in collaboration. Collaboration can also be challenging, especially finding the right partnerships or organizations to lead. Within the “ecosystem” of conservat...

Mapping the spatial and temporal dynamics of species distributions is necessary for biodiversity conservation land-use planning decisions. Recent advances in remote sensing and machine learning have allowed for high-resolution species distribution mo...

Socio-cultural research might address anthropocentric reasons for honeybee (Apis mellifera) conservation. In some regions, particular honeybee subspecies are considered to be native; A. mellifera mellifera (“dark bee”) in the north-east and A. mellif...

The consequent deforestation of urban sprawl is one of the causes of the decline of wild bee communities. In this context, urban green areas (UGA) may play an important role and constitute refuge areas for bees. This study analyzed the influence of U...

Chengdu Plain is one of China’s most important agricultural production zones and has a large human population. Agricultural crops require insect pollination to increase yield and quality, which is especially important in plains areas where fore...

Pollination biology examines the mechanisms, agents, and ecological significance of pollination [...]

Pollination services, from both wild and managed populations of insect pollinators, have degraded as a result of agricultural intensification. Whilst 75% of economically important crops depend on insect pollinators for cultivation, 40% of insect poll...

A worldwide decline in pollinators, combined with the growing demand for pollinator-dependant crops, is increasingly placing the value chains of these crops at risk. Socio-economic impacts can be significant, especially for those economies dependant...

Despite flies regularly visiting flowers, limited research has gone into their pollination ability on commercial crops. A national project in Australia aimed to identify fly species as potential managed pollinators for the horticultural industry and,...

Walnut (Juglans regia L.) is a monoecious species and although it exhibits self-compatibility, it presents incomplete overlap of pollen shed and female receptivity. Thus, cross-pollination is prerequisite for optimal fruit production. Cross-pollinati...

Increasing agricultural intensification can have a large impact on pollinating communities in terms of number and diversity, which often show a declining trend these days. Pollination is an important regulating ecosystem service, providing about 84%...