Context

There have been dramatic global declines in pollinating insects. A common land management intervention to support wild pollinators is to plant non-crop flowering plants (‘pollinator planting’). However, there are limited data on which species or spatial arrangement of planting provide maximum benefit to wild pollinators.

Objectives

Here we investigate which flowering species and locations are visited by free-foraging Bombus terrestris (buff-tailed bumblebees) in species-rich semi-natural grassland and woodland.

Methods

Two study nests of buff-tailed bumblebees were established in Wytham Woods, UK. Pollen analogue pigments were sprayed on open flowers in the study area over a period of two months, with unique colours used to identify separate sections of the study area. Pollen load analysis was used to identify forage species and foraging locations.

Results

Bumblebees showed low flower constancy, visiting five flower species per trip on average, and as a group the sampled bumblebees visited 36 of the 49 plant species identified in study area surveys. Many individuals foraged in multiple, spatially-discrete locations during single trips.

Conclusions

The positive relationship between floral diversity and pollen load species diversity, and the positive relationship between site floral diversity and frequency of visitation, suggest behavioural strategies that maximize the diversity of flower species visited, in line with the energetic costs and benefits hypothesis. This supports recommendations for pollinator plantings with high species diversity, potentially spread across many small forage areas across the landscape.

中文翻译：

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新的花粉模拟技术显示大黄蜂表现出较低的花卉恒常性，更喜欢具有高花卉多样性的地点

语境

全球授粉昆虫数量急剧下降。支持野生授粉媒介的常见土地管理干预措施是种植非作物开花植物（“授粉媒介种植”）。然而，关于哪些物种或种植空间布局为野生传粉媒介提供最大利益的数据有限。

目标

在这里，我们调查了在物种丰富的半天然草原和林地中自由觅食的Bombus terrestris（黄尾熊蜂）访问了哪些开花物种和地点。

方法

在英国威瑟姆伍兹 (Wytham Woods) 建立了两个浅黄色大黄蜂研究巢穴。在两个月的时间里，花粉模拟颜料被喷洒在研究区域的开放花朵上，用独特的颜色来识别研究区域的不同部分。花粉负荷分析用于确定牧草种类和觅食地点。

结果

大黄蜂表现出较低的花稳定性，平均每次旅行访问 5 个花卉物种，作为一个群体，采样的大黄蜂访问了研究区域调查中确定的 49 种植物物种中的 36 种。许多人在单次旅行中在多个空间离散的位置觅食。

结论

花卉多样性与花粉负荷物种多样性之间的正相关关系，以及现场花卉多样性与访问频率之间的正相关关系，表明了最大化访问花卉物种多样性的行为策略，符合能量成本和收益假设。这支持了对具有高物种多样性的授粉媒介种植的建议，这些植物可能分布在整个景观的许多小牧草区。