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Wild bees respond complementarily to ‘high-quality’ perennial and annual habitats of organic farms in a complex landscape

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Abstract

Agricultural intensification leads to large-scale loss of habitats offering food and nesting sites for bees. This has resulted in a severe decline of wild bee diversity and abundance during the past decades. There is an urgent need for cost-effective conservation measures to mitigate this decline. We analysed the impact of five different high-quality habitats on species richness and abundance of wild bees in a complex landscape of north-western Switzerland at six sites. The five habitat types included 45 plots situated on eight organic farms and were composed of 16 low-input meadows, six low-input pastures, seven herbaceous strips adjacent to hedges, five sown flower strips and eleven organic cereal fields. All of them are financially subsidised by the Swiss agri-environmental scheme. Wild bees were sampled between the end of April and end of August 2014 by using trio-pan traps and complementary sweep netting on these five habitat types. On 45 plots we recorded 3973 bee specimens, belonging to 91 species, 16 of which are red listed, revealing a high bee species richness in the study area. Wild bee species richness and abundance were best explained by habitat type, number of flowering plants and site. A strong relationship of increasing number of flowering plants and bee species richness and abundance was found. Grassland habitats, especially low-input meadows, harboured the highest species richness and abundances. Organic cereal fields showed a potential to conserve bee species relevant to nature conservation (harbouring exclusively two red list species and four rare species). Ordination analysis of the bee communities showed a relative dissimilarity between the habitat types and indicates their complementary effects to benefit the diversity of wild bees. Our results demonstrate that a matrix of low-input habitats are needed to sustain rich assemblages of wild bees in agroecosystems.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dreiklang Foundation, Vontobel Foundation, Temperatio Foundation and Oekoenergie Fonds (IWB) for their financial support. We would like to thank Fabian Cahenzli for fruitful comments, Simon Moakes for improving the English style and all participating farmers for their support and access to their fields and two anonymous reviewers for their useful and constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Ackerstrasse 113 / P.O. 219, 5070, Frick, Switzerland

    Lukas Pfiffner, Miriam Ostermaier & Sibylle Stoeckli

  2. Restoration Ecology, Technical University Munich, Emil-Ramann-Str. 6, 85350, Freising, Germany

    Miriam Ostermaier

  3. Natur Umwelt Wissen GmbH, Universitätstrasse 65, 8006, Zurich, Switzerland

    Andreas Müller

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  1. Lukas Pfiffner
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Correspondence to Lukas Pfiffner.

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Pfiffner, L., Ostermaier, M., Stoeckli, S. et al. Wild bees respond complementarily to ‘high-quality’ perennial and annual habitats of organic farms in a complex landscape. J Insect Conserv 22, 551–562 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-018-0084-6

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