Non-crop Floral Traits as Determinants of Bee Visitation in a Tropical Agricultural Landscape
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Proc Zool Soc https://doi.org/10.1007/s12595-019-00302-9
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Non-crop Floral Traits as Determinants of Bee Visitation in a Tropical Agricultural Landscape Supratim Laha1 • Soumik Chatterjee1 • Amlan Das2 • Barbara Smith1,3 Parthiba Basu1
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Received: 8 May 2019 / Revised: 19 July 2019 / Accepted: 31 July 2019 Ó Zoological Society, Kolkata, India 2019
Abstract Creating non-crop habitats for sustaining pollinators and other beneficial insects in agricultural landscapes has gained momentum in recent times. However, in the tropics, considering limited availability of land for noncrop habitat creation, it is critical to select right kind of non-crop plant species with floral traits that can attract pollinators in good number. We tried to understand bees’ preferences with respect to two important visual cues belonging to four common non-crop species (Sida acuta, Stylosanthes hamata, Limnophila repens, Tephrosia purpurea) in the study area. We grew these plants in pots and arranged them in 5 combinations based on flower colour and structure. Increased bee visitation was observed in flowers that had blue petals and in complex flowers (reproductive parts hidden). However, complex structure of the flower rather than petal colour was more important in attracting bees. This information will be crucial in making species choice for creation of non-crop habitats in the limited available spaces in the tropical agricultural landscape. Keywords Agricultural landscape Bee visitation Floral trait Non-crop flowers Tropics
& Parthiba Basu [email protected] 1
Ecology Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Calcutta, 35 Ballygunge Circular Road, Kolkata 700019, India
2
Entomology, Department of Zoology, University of Calcutta, 35 Ballygunge Circular Road, Kolkata 700019, India
3
Centre for Agroecology Water and Resilience, Coventry University, Wolston Lane, Coventry CV8 3LG, UK
Introduction Semi-natural habitats in agricultural landscapes, important refuges for pollinators and other beneficial organisms that provide important ecosystem services (Frank and Shrewsbury 2004; Wratten et al. 2012) are increasingly sparse, degraded and fragmented due to the intensification and expansion of agricultural areas and other anthropogenic activities (Tscharntke et al. 2005; Biesmeijer et al. 2006). Their conservation and restoration have recently received attentions in the Western developed countries, particularly for conserving and attracting pollinators on farmland (Williams et al. 2015) by growing and preserving non-crop flower rich patches, field margins and hedgerows (Happe et al. 2018). In contrast, in tropical countries, the restoration and conservation of semi-natural habitats have not been part of any agricultural land use plan and largely remain ignored (Tscharntke et al. 2005), although the decline of seminatural habitats and the subsequent effect on beneficial insects have been reported (Le Fe´on et al. 2013; Hass et al. 2018). Due to the pre
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