Pollination of strawberries and biological pest control on different spatial scales, from crop varieties and fields to landscapes
Final Report Abstract
In this project, Dr. Bjoern Klatt quantified in his doctoral thesis hitherto unknown benefits and drivers of crop pollination by bees, highlighting pollination as key factor for the production of strawberries. Bee pollination improved the commercial value and post-harvest quality of strawberries across varieties, including the commercially important shelf life. Bee pollinated fruits were heavier and could be sorted into higher commercial grades due a better shape than fruits resulting from wind and self-pollination, thereby leading to a generally higher commercial value of bee-pollinated fruits. Fruits of most varieties had an elongated shelf life, intensified red colour as well as lower sugar-acid ratios as result of bee pollination, enhancing the postharvest quality of strawberries. Pollination improved the shelf life of strawberries due to higher firmness, which led to less weight loss as well as lower amounts of decayed fruits during storage time. These so far unknown drivers of crop pollination were assessed on different spatial scales, from plants over entire fields to landscapes. Strawberry fruit weight was influenced by the duration of bee visits, which differs between species. Pollination by the wild bee Osmia bicornis is most likely influenced by differences in the emission of flower volatile compounds between strawberry varieties. Strawberry pollination by Osmia bicornis can be highly important, because individuals are evenly distributed over entire fields and - in contrast to honeybees - were not distracted by simultaneously flowering oilseed rape. Although similar to honeybees, few individuals are often sufficient for strawberry pollination, enhancement of local population of Osmia bicornis by artificial nesting resources should be an important measure to enhance pollination success. At the field scale, strawberry pollination is dependent on honeybees and wild bees, with effects changing between field locations. An even bee community benefited strawberry fruit weight at the field edge, whereas honeybees. the most dominant pollinators, were most important at the field centre, presumably due to the higher conspecific pollen loads in the centre. We found no effects of landscape complexity on pollinator diet breadth or specialisation, but there were differences in the amount of heterospecific pollen carried among bee taxa. The species richness of bees on strawberry fields in across different European countries is higher at field margins than the field centre, independent of the margins’ structure and latitude. However, bee activity and abundance of bee genera differed between northern and southern countries. http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/3240.html?tid=474 http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/erdbeeren-befruchtung-bienen-bringenlandwirtschaft-milliarden-ein-a-937046.html http://www.stern.de//news2/aktuell/von-bienen-bestaeubte-erdbeeren-sind-groesser-undroter-2075373.html http://www.zeit.de/news/2013-12/04/d-bienen-weit-nuetzlicher-fuer-landwirtschaft-als-bisherbekannt-04121016 and many other reports in the media, particularly in the internet (e.g. BBC, DLF).
Publications
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Bee pollination of strawberries on different spatial scales – from crop varieties and fields to landscapes. PhD thesis, Library of the Georg-August-University
Bjoern Klatt
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Bee pollination improves the commercial value and quality of strawberry fruits (2012; 42nd Annual Conference of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ), Lüneburg, Germany)
Bjoern Klatt
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Bee pollination improves the commercial value and quality of strawberry fruits (2012; 4th International EcoSummit, Columbus, Ohio, USA)
Bjoern Klatt
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(2013): Flower Volatiles, Crop Varieties and Bee Responses. PLoS ONE 8(8): e72724
Klatt BK, Burmeister C, Westphal C, Tscharntke T, von Fragstein M
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(2013): Wild Pollinators Enhance Fruit Set of Crops Regardless of Honey Bee Abundance. Science: 339 (6127): 1608-1611
Garibaldi LA, Steffan-Dewenter I, Winfree R, Aizen MA, Bommarco R, Cunningham SA, Kremen C, Carvalheiro LG, Harder LD, Afik O, Bartomeus I, Benjamin F, Boreux V, Cariveau D, Chacoff NP, Dudenhöffer JH, Freitas BM, Ghazoul J, Greenleaf S, Hipólito J, Holzschuh A, Howlett B, Isaacs R, Javorek SK, Kennedy CM, Krewenka K, Krishnan S, Mandelik Y, Mayfield MM, Motzke I, Munyuli T, Nault BA, Otieno M, Petersen J, Pisanty G, Potts SG, Rader R, Ricketts TH, Rundlöf M, Seymour CL, Schüepp C, Szentgyörgyi H, Taki H, Tscharntke T, Vergara CH, Viana BF, Wanger TC, Westphal C, Williams N, Klein AM
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Bienenbestäubung steigert Qualität, Lagerfähigkeit und Marktwert von pflanzlichen Erzeugnissen (2013; 48 Annual Conference of the German Society for Quality Research on Plant Foods (DGQ), Göttingen, Germany)
Bjoern Klatt
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Context-dependent importance of honeybee pollination (2013; 43nd Annual Conference of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ), Potsdam, Germany)
Bjoern Klatt
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Enhancing crop shelf life with pollination (2013; Conference of the International Association for Ecology (INTECOL), London, United Kingdom)
Bjoern Klatt
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(2014): Bee pollination improves crop quality, shelf life and commercial value. Proc. R. Soc. B 281: 20132440
Klatt BK, Holzschuh A, Westphal C, Clough Y, Smit I, Pawelzik E, Tscharntke T
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Enhancing crop shelf life with pollination. Agriculture & Food Security, 2014/12, Bd 3 Ausg 1, 14 S.
Klatt B.K., Klaus F., Westphal C., Tscharntke, T.
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Pollinator communities in strawberry crops – variation at multiple spatial scales. Bulletin of Entomological Research,
Volume 105, Issue 4, August 2015 , pp. 497-506
Ahrenfeldt E.J., Klatt B.K., Arildsen J., Trandem N., Andersson G., Tscharntke T., Smith H.G., Sigsgaard L.
