Abstract
Non-crop vegetation in agricultural landscapes can provide a means of conserving insects in farmed landscapes and optimising on-farm ecosystem services as a result. Inclusion of floral resources may be particularly useful in conserving many beneficial insects, where groups including pollinators and pest natural enemies often rely on nectar and pollen during (at least part of) their life-cycle. As not all flowers are equally suited to all beneficial insects, selection of appropriate flowering plants is key to ensuring that conservation targets are met and benefits to ecosystems services realised as a result. This short paper describes an experiment conducted to assess the ‘total temporal attractiveness’ of a range of British wildflowers to selected functional insect groups. The results obtained demonstrate that flowering period alone is a poor indicator of plant suitability to insects, where no relationship existed between this and attraction to insects overall. Data also suggest that, based on attraction over a season, certain flowering plants are more likely to be of general insect conservation value and/or benefit to functional insect groups than others. Attraction to pest insects was also considered, with relatively high catches of thrips and pollen beetles observed in flowering stands of some plants.
References
Altieri MA (1999) The ecological role of biodiversity in agroecosystems. Agric Ecosyst Environ 74:19–31
Carvell C, Westrich P, Meek WR, Pywell RF, Nowakowski M (2006) Assessing the value of annual and perennial forage mixtures for bumblebees by direct observation and pollen analysis. Apidologie 37:326–340
Catovsky S, Bradford MA, Hector A (2002) Biodiversity and ecosystem productivity: implications for carbon storage. Oikos 97:443–448
Fitter AH, Peat HJ (1994) The ecological flora database. J Ecol 82:415–425
Franzén M, Nilsson SG (2008) How can we preserve and restore species richness of pollinating insects on agricultural land? Ecography 31:698–708
George DR, Croft P, Northing P, Wäckers FL (2010) Perennial field margins with combined agronomical and ecological benefits for vegetable rotation schemes. IOBC wprs Bull 56:45–48
Gurr GM, Wratten SD, Luna JM (2003) Multi-function agricultural biodiversity: pest management and other benefits. Basic Appl Ecol 4:107–116
Hoback WW, Svatos TM, Spomer SM, Higley LG (1999) Trap color and placement affects estimates of insect family-level abundance and diversity in a Nebraska salt marsh. Entomol Exp Appl 91:393–402
Landis DA, Wratten SD, Gurr GM (2000) Habitat management to conserve natural enemies of arthropod pests in agriculture. Annu Rev Entomol 45:175–201
Langoya LA, van Rijn PCJ (2008) The significance of floral resources for natural control of aphids. Proc Neth Entomol Soc Meet 19:67–74
Lavandero BI, Wratten SD, Didham RK, Gurr GM (2006) Increasing floral diversity for selective enhancement of biological control agents: a double-edged sward? Basic Appl Ecol 7:236–243
Olson DM, Wäckers FL (2007) Management of field margins to maximize multiple ecological services. J Appl Ecol 44:13–21
Pfiffner L, Wyss E (2004) Use of sown wildflower strips to enhance natural enemies of agricultural pests. In: Gurr GM, Wratten SD, Altieri MA (eds) Ecological engineering for pest management. CABI-Publishing, Collingwood, pp 167–188
Pywell RF, Warman EA, Sparks TH, Greatorex-Davies JN, Walker KJ, Meek WR, Carvell C, Petit S, Firbank LG (2004) Assessing habitat quality for butterflies on intensively managed farmland. Biol Conserv 118:313–325
Wäckers FL (2004) Assessing the suitability of flowering herbs as parasitoid food sources: flower attractiveness and nectar accessibility. Biol Control 29:307–314
Winkler K, Wäckers FL, Termorshuizen AJ, van Lenteren JC (2010) Assessing risks and benefits of floral supplements in conservation biological control. Biocontrol 55:719–727
Acknowledgments
This work formed part of HortLINK Project HL0192, as supported by Defra and the project consortium members (see www.ecostac.co.uk for details). The authors would like to thank the staff of Emorsgate Seeds for sample collection and Fera for sample preparation/storage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Romain J. G. Carrié and David R. George contributed equally.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Carrié, R.J.G., George, D.R. & Wäckers, F.L. Selection of floral resources to optimise conservation of agriculturally-functional insect groups. J Insect Conserv 16, 635–640 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-012-9508-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-012-9508-x