Small fields have big benefits for pollinators – but only with semi-natural habitats nearby
Hun-Ren Ökológiai KutatóközpontPeer-Reviewed Publication
Pollinators, such as bumblebees, are essential providers of ecosystem services for agriculture, yet their numbers are declining due to landscape structure simplification and habitat loss. To explore this issue, an international research group set up 56 commercial bumblebee colonies in Eastern Austria and Western Hungary—two regions once divided by the Iron Curtain and now markedly different in field size: Austria with very small, narrow fields (around 2 hectares) and Hungary with large fields (around 17 hectares). Their goal was to find out how local factors (crop type) and landscape-scale features (mean field size and proximity to semi-natural habitat) affect colony success—specifically traffic rate (a proxy for bumblebees activity), growth, and reproduction. They also examined pollen diversity and tested bumblebee navigation abilities by relocating workers and recording how quickly they returned to the colony, using small radio frequency identification tags.
- Journal
- Journal of Applied Ecology
- Funder
- European Union's Horizon 2020 RI programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement, Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office