Wildlife areas on farms must be carefully managed and protected to support bees - study
Wildlife areas on farms must be carefully managed as well as protected to support bees and other insect pollinators, a major study has found.
Over 70% of crops worldwide rely on insect pollinators so the creation of interconnected, well-managed habitats on farmland is crucial.
Intensive farming has been blamed for the decline in the number of insect pollinators and the associated loss of flower-rich habitats that provide food, nesting and breeding sites.
More than 20 pollinator experts from 18 different countries across Europe, including Ireland, looked at a range of wildlife habitats on farmland.
They wanted to determine how well the habitats supported insect pollinators such as bumblebees, solitary bees and hoverflies.
In a bid to decrease the environmental impact of agriculture, the 2014 EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) defined a set of habitat and landscape features that farmers need to incorporate in order to receive basic farm payments.
However, despite significant investment in wildlife habitats, also called ecological focus areas, they are failing to provide all the resources insect pollinators need.
The experts identified a scarcity of late-season forage across Europe that has been implicated in the decline of late-active bee species.
Actions needed to manage the situation include late-flowering species in seed mixtures and staggering or having more lenient mowing or grazing of nitrogen-fixing crops.
Jane Stout, Professor in Botany at Trinity College Dublin and a co-author of the study said farmers must make sure there is a diversity of resources for bees and other pollinators to feed on right through the year, and places for wild pollinators to nest or lay their eggs.
"Of our 99 Irish bee species, most of them nest in the ground and we are currently investigating what influences their nesting, and how we can create appropriate agri-environment measures to promote this," said Prof Stout.
The study, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, evaluated how different agri-environmental wildlife habitats supported insect pollinators.
The experts found there were “substantial opportunities” to improve the quality of the habitats by implementing pollinator-friendly management practices.
The study, funded under the Cost Action Super-B – Sustainable Pollination in Europe Programme will inform the CAP post-2020.
Dr Lorna Cole, agricultural ecologist at Scotland's Rural College and lead researcher said the study highlighted the need to improve habitat quality to effectively conserve pollinators.
“With different habitats offering different resources we also need to focus on increasing habitat diversity to ensure that our countryside provides the range of resources that pollinators require,” said Dr Cole.
