ArticleEcology letters2020
The effectiveness of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control, pollination services and crop yield: a quantitative synthesis.
Article in Ecology letters, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 105 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
105 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 597 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pollination Across the Diel Cycle: A Global Meta-Analysis.Ecology letters · 2025Pooled it
- Pesticides do not significantly reduce arthropod pest densities in the presence of natural enemies.Ecology letters · 2021Pooled it
- Biodiversity isn't measured in tons: Making sense of nature in the context of sustainable agriculture.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Review
- Multimodal Plant-Animal Communication: Signaling Mechanisms, Coevolution, and Environmental Disruption.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Non-crop habitats are associated with early-season abundance dynamics of predatory natural enemies adjacent to wheat fields.Pest management science · 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
- Enhancing Biological Control of Maize Seedling-Stage Pests Through Combined Application ofInsects · 2026Article
- Commercial planting of genetically modified maize lowers pest damage, yield loss and pesticide usage in Northeast China.Pest management science · 2026Article
- Field Margin Vegetation Structure Buffers Microclimate Extremes in Temperate Agricultural Landscapes.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Effects of Local Management and Landscape Complexity on Insects and Ecosystem Services in Agroecosystems: A Review of the Intermediate Landscape Complexity Hypothesis.Ecology letters · 2026Review
- Article
- Review
- Method comparison of microscopy, metabarcoding, and multispectral imaging flow cytometry for identification and relative abundance analysis of insect-dispersed pollen.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The Potential of Landscape PlantsInsects · 2026Article
- Unraveling pesticide impacts on pollinators: a global challenge for sustainable crop protection.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2026Review
- Article
- Pesticides and habitat loss additively reduce wild bees in crop fields.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Implementation of practices shapes the effectiveness of agricultural diversification for arthropod related ecosystem services: a meta-analysis.Agronomy for sustainable development · 2026Review
- Article
- Mapping the potential of Natural Pest Control services in pan-European landscapes at 50 m resolution.Scientific data · 2025Article
45 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedADDENDUM.2021
Authors and funding
44 authors at 20 institutions in 11 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Floral plantings are promoted to foster ecological intensification of agriculture through provisioning of ecosystem services. However, a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of different floral plantings, their characteristics and consequences for crop yield is lacking. Here we quantified the impacts of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control (18 studies) and pollination services (17 studies) in adjacent crops in North America, Europe and New Zealand. Flower strips, but not hedgerows, enhanced pest control services in adjacent fields by 16% on average. However, effects on crop pollination and yield were more variable. Our synthesis identifies several important drivers of variability in effectiveness of plantings: pollination services declined exponentially with distance from plantings, and perennial and older flower strips with higher flowering plant diversity enhanced pollination more effectively. These findings provide promising pathways to optimise floral plantings to more effectively contribute to ecosystem service delivery and ecological intensification of agriculture in the future.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.