The importance of wild insects as pollinators of tropical tree crops has rarely been tested. Across 18 small-scale lychee orchards in northern Thailand, we evaluated the roles of different wild insects as pollinators and predators of pests in fruit production. Quantitative assessments showed that bees (Family Apidae) were strongly dominant (83%) among insect flower visitors, comprising four species in tribes Apini and four in Meliponini. Experimental manipulations of inflorescences showed that fruit production in these orchards was: (1) dependent on flower visits by wild insects because enclosure of inflorescences in mesh bags decreased fruit set (to one-fifth) and (2) not greatly limited by pollinator deficiencies, because hand pollination of unbagged flowers did not enhance fruit set. Pollination success, as indicated by the proportion of unmanipulated flowers setting fruit, correlated positively across orchards with the abundance of large-bodied Apidae (>7 mm; most were Apis species) and of Apini, and negatively with abundance of small-bodied Apidae and of all Meliponini, despite the latter being the commonest flower visitors. We conclude that larger-bodied bees are most likely to travel sufficiently far to import genetically diverse pollen, in this landscape-scale mosaic where non-orchard habitats (both agriculture and treed patches) were sufficient to sustain wild pollinators.

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热带水果的生产依赖于野生昆虫群落：泰国的蜜蜂和荔枝

野生昆虫作为热带树木作物传粉者的重要性很少得到测试。在泰国北部的 18 个小型荔枝园中，我们评估了不同野生昆虫作为传粉媒介和害虫捕食者在水果生产中的作用。定量评估表明，蜜蜂（家庭蜜蜂科）在昆虫花卉访客中占主导地位（83%），其中包括 Apini 部落的 4 个物种和 Meliponini 的 4 个物种。花序的实验操作表明，这些果园的果实生产是：（1）依赖于野生昆虫的花朵访问，因为网袋中的花序封闭减少了坐果率（至五分之一）和（2）不受传粉媒介缺陷的很大限制，因为未套袋花的人工授粉并没有提高坐果率。授粉成功，蜜蜂物种) 和 Apini，负有丰富的小体 Apidae 和所有 Meliponini，尽管后者是最常见的花卉游客。我们得出的结论是，在这种景观尺度的马赛克中，体型较大的蜜蜂最有可能传播足够远的距离来输入遗传多样性的花粉，其中非果园栖息地（农业和树木斑块）足以维持野生授粉媒介。