Pollination services are critical for food production. Although domesticated honey bees are important pollinators in agriculture, there is growing interest in supporting naturally occurring wild bees. Diversifying pollination management strategies by encouraging healthy wild bee communities may be especially useful for growers of insect-pollinated crops, such as apples. Although research has identified several land management practices that can enhance local pollinator communities on farms, there are few studies on the factors that influence growers to adopt pollinator-supporting actions on their land. Here, we surveyed 75 Canadian apple growers and used regression models to explore the influence of farm characteristics and perceptions about bees on the likelihood of adopting 15 unique pollinator-supporting practices. We also provide a descriptive analysis of growers' pollination management practices and self-assessed resourcefulness on the ability to improve habitat for wild pollinators on the farm. We found that an increase in three variables: awareness of wild bees, perception of the severity of threats facing wild populations, and the perception of the benefits provided by wild bees is associated with more pollinator-supporting practices on the farm. Overall, growers were less likely to adopt pollinator-friendly practices as the fraction of rented land increased and as the perceived costs of implementing these practices rose. We found ‘low-hanging fruit’ (i.e., pollinator-supporting practices that could be easily and inexpensively implemented) were adopted by less than one-third of growers and that the majority of those surveyed had little to no knowledge on what actions to take if they wanted to improve their farms for wild bees or where to go for that knowledge. Our results suggest that policies and programs that focus on raising grower awareness of wild bees, increasing grower perception of their benefits, and reducing the perceived costs of implementing pollinator-supporting practices may positively affect their uptake. A deeper understanding of grower perceptions will provide essential insight into how growers may contribute to wild pollinator conservation while potentially increasing agricultural production and reducing vulnerability borne of heavy reliance on managed pollinators.

中文翻译：

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对与加拿大苹果种植者采用传粉媒介支持的土地管理实践相关的野生蜜蜂和农场特征的看法

授粉服务对粮食生产至关重要。尽管驯化的蜜蜂是农业中重要的传粉媒介，但人们对支持自然存在的野生蜜蜂的兴趣日益浓厚。通过鼓励健康的野生蜜蜂群落来多样化授粉管理策略可能对苹果等昆虫授粉作物的种植者特别有用。尽管研究已经确定了几种可以增强农场当地传粉媒介群落的土地管理实践，但很少有关于影响种植者在其土地上采取传粉媒介支持行动的因素的研究。在这里，我们调查了 75 名加拿大苹果种植者，并使用回归模型来探索农场特征和对蜜蜂的看法对采用 15 种独特的传粉媒介支持实践的可能性的影响。我们还提供了对种植者授粉管理实践的描述性分析，以及对改善农场野生授粉媒介栖息地能力的自评足智多谋。我们发现三个变量的增加：对野生蜜蜂的认识、对野生种群面临的威胁严重性的认识以及对野生蜜蜂提供的好处的认识与农场中更多支持传粉媒介的做法有关。总体而言，随着租用土地比例的增加以及实施这些做法的感知成本上升，种植者不太可能采用有利于传粉媒介的做法。我们发现了“唾手可得的果实”（即，传粉媒介支持实践，可以轻松且廉价地实施）被不到三分之一的种植者采用，并且大多数接受调查的人几乎不知道如果他们想改善他们的农场以饲养野生蜜蜂或去哪里获取这些知识。我们的研究结果表明，专注于提高种植者对野生蜜蜂的认识、提高种植者对其益处的认识以及降低实施传粉媒介支持实践的感知成本的政策和计划可能会对它们的吸收产生积极影响。更深入地了解种植者的看法将为了解种植者如何为野生传粉媒介保护做出重要贡献，同时潜在地增加农业产量并减少严重依赖受管理的传粉媒介带来的脆弱性。