A new Safeguard study published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment contributes to filling in knowledge gaps about the efficiency and dynamics of wildflower plantings and their relation to pollinators in the farmland regions of East-Central Europe.
Researchers, amongst whom partners from the Centre for Ecological Research (OK) and the Regional Centre for Information and Scientific Development (RCISD), investigated how landscape context, spatial configuration and age of wildflower plantings, seasonality and flower composition affect pollinator communities in Hungary.
To do that, the research group established diverse native wildflower plantings within heterogeneous and homogeneous agricultural landscapes in two spatial configurations across the country: one large field or three smaller strips. Afterwards, they collected samples of floral resources and wild pollinator insects (wild bees, hoverflies, and butterflies), in the early and mid-summer seasons, for two years after the establishment of these plantings.
Results show that wild bee and butterfly abundance was increased in the region of the sown native diverse wildflower plantings and that in the first year, plant species from the soil seed bank dominated flower resources. Researchers also found that both flower abundance and diversity increased the abundance of pollinators. Another major result indicates that wildflower plantings were particularly attractive for wild bees in flower-poor landscapes during the flower-poor (mid-summer) period of the year.
The global mission to reverse pollination declines might be challenging, but not impossible. To support pollinators effectively, the authors recommend that future wildflower plantings should aim to maximise floral diversity, ensure continuously available flower resources throughout the season and that they should be maintained for the long term.
Figure 3 from the article: The predicted mean abundance (95% CI) of major studied pollinator groups with flower abundance (a) and species numbers (b) in the mid-summer of the second year based on Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs). All predictions are for 25 m transect lengths. a) Mean wild bee and hoverfly abundances (95% CI) as a function of log-mean flower abundance (per m2) by spatial configurations and landscape context. b) Mean wild bee and butterfly abundances (95% CI) as a function of mean flowering species numbers (per m2).