ArticleBMC ecology2018
Flower strip networks offer promising long term effects on pollinator species richness in intensively cultivated agricultural areas.
Article in BMC ecology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Intensive arable farming calls for resilient wild bee restoration amid severe abundance fluctuations.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Pollinators in Blackcurrant Orchards: Complementary Roles of Sown and Spontaneous Flower Strips and Limited Spillover of Small Wild Bees Within Fields.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Unraveling pesticide impacts on pollinators: a global challenge for sustainable crop protection.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2026Review
- Sown Summer-Blooming Wildflowers as a Tool to Support Pollinator Biodiversity During Dry Periods in Mediterranean Agroecosystems.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Grassland Restoration Drives Strong Multitrophic Biodiversity Recovery, but Climate Extremes Jeopardize Drought-Sensitive Species.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Pollinator-Promoting Interventions in European Urban Habitats-A Synthesis.Ecology letters · 2025Review
- Market-Based Instruments for Biodiversity in Agricultural Landscapes: An Evaluation of Quality Criteria in a German case study.Environmental management · 2025Article
- Whole-Colony Dynamic Energy Budget Model for Bumble Bees: Assessing the Impact of Wildflower Patches on Crop Pollination.Bulletin of mathematical biology · 2025Article
- Diet composition of wild columbiform birds: next-generation sequencing of plant and metazoan DNA in faecal samples.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2023Article
- Article
- Agricultural buffer zone thresholds to safeguard functional bee diversity: Insights from a community modeling approach.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Differential equation model for central-place foragers with memory: implications for bumble bee crop pollination.Journal of mathematical biology · 2021Article
- The effectiveness of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control, pollination services and crop yield: a quantitative synthesis.Ecology letters · 2020Article
- Use of Flowering Plants to Enhance Parasitism and Predation Rates on Two Squash Bug SpeciesInsects · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundIntensively cultivated agricultural landscapes often suffer from substantial pollinator losses, which may be leading to decreasing pollination services for crops and wild flowering plants. Conservation measures that are easy to implement and accepted by farmers are needed to halt a further loss of pollinators in large areas under intensive agricultural management. Here we report the results of a replicated long-term study involving networks of mostly perennial flower strips covering 10% of a conventionally managed agricultural landscape in southwestern Germany.
resultsWe demonstrate the considerable success of these measures for wild bee and butterfly species richness over an observation period of 5 years. Overall species richness of bees and butterflies but also the numbers of specialist bee species clearly increased in the ecological enhancement areas as compared to the control areas without ecological enhancement measures. A three to five-fold increase in species richness was found after more than 2 years of enhancement of the areas with flower strips. Oligolectic bee species increased significantly only after the third year.
conclusionsIn our long-term field experiment we used a large variety of seed mixtures and temporal variation in seeding time, ensured continuity of the flower-strips by using perennial seed mixtures and distributed the measures over c. 10% of the landscape. This led to an increase in pollinator abundance, suggesting that these measures may be instrumental for the successful support of pollinators. These measures may ensure the availability of a network of diverse habitats and foraging resources for pollinators throughout the year, as well as nesting sites for many species. The measures are applied in-field and are suitable for application in areas under intensive agriculture. We propose that flower strip networks should be implemented much more in the upcoming CAP (common agricultural policy) reform in the European Union and promoted more by advisory services for farmers.
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