Sustainable Management of Orchard Pollination Services

昆虫传粉者提供了重要的生态系统服务，支持作物授粉和野生植物繁殖。据报道，传粉媒介的减少威胁到这一服务，并可能对粮食安全产生严重影响。依赖昆虫授粉的主要作物是苹果，野生传粉媒介对英国苹果产量的贡献估计为每年9500万英镑。然而，在一些品种中，已经发现了每公顷6000英镑以上的“授粉缺口”，由于授粉不足，无法达到预期的产量和质量。这为种植者提供了通过更好的授粉提高产量和利润的主要机会。传粉昆虫的减少也对作物生产产生负面影响，从而对水果生产构成重大风险。作为回应，顶级水果种植者已经明确表示，需要以一种具有成本效益的方式有效管理野生昆虫的授粉服务，以便在面对持续的环境变化时保持产量和质量。我们的项目将通过在商业苹果园的田间规模试验中设计和测试三种传粉媒介管理策略，发展高质量的科学来解决这一需求。这些措施包括建立鲜花丰富的地带，为传粉者提供食物和住所，为地面筑巢的蜜蜂提供筑巢栖息地，以及调整果园中“授粉”树木的数量和位置，以提高授粉水平。苹果树主要是自交不亲和的，需要授粉树的花粉才能结果，所以尽管它们不会结出可销售的果实，但授粉树被种植在果园里。目前种植的传粉者的数量是基于每12棵苹果树1个传粉者的经验法则。作为该项目的第一步，我们将在研究果园中试验不同数量和排列的传粉树，并测量它们对授粉和苹果产量的影响，以确定最佳排列和比例。众所周知，花条有利于传粉者。在这个项目中，我们将首次设计专门用于支持已知苹果传粉媒介的定制花条。我们将设计花带，以包含特别适合地面筑巢的蜜蜂和大黄蜂的植物，它们已被确定为苹果果园的顶级传粉者。此外，在苹果开花期间，我们将最大化我们的边际（即使用高水平切割只去除花朵），将传粉者从花条上推到苹果花上，从而最大化效益条提供的效益。这些有针对性的花条对传粉昆虫和苹果产量的影响将在商业果园的田间规模试验中进行测量。虽然为传粉者提供花卉资源是增加传粉者数量的一种行之有效的方法，但提供筑巢地点却被广泛忽视，而且人们对这对传粉服务的影响知之甚少。在这个项目中，我们将在我们的研究果园中创造新的地面筑巢蜜蜂巢穴，并测量这些对蜜蜂种群的影响及其对苹果授粉的贡献。我们将把田间试验的结果汇总在一起，并确定干预措施的成本和质量和产量长期改善方面的经济回报。我们的首要目标是了解这三种干预措施（单独或组合）如何影响授粉服务对生产和利润的贡献价值的机制基础，以便我们能够“设计”最有效的果园内干预措施。将对这些方法的成本和效益进行评估，以便向种植者提出具体的管理建议，这些建议切实可行，并通过支持苹果园长期稳定的授粉，为种植者提供可靠的经济回报。

Insect pollinators provide a vital ecosystem service supporting crop pollination and reproduction in wild plants. Reported declines in pollinators threaten this service and could have serious implications for food security. A key crop dependent on insect pollination is apples, and the contribution of wild pollinators to UK apple production is worth an estimated £95M p.a. However, "pollination gaps" of more £6000/ha have been identified in some varieties, where desired yields and quality are not being achieved due to inadequate pollination. This presents a major opportunity for growers for increased production and profit through better pollination. The documented decline of pollinating insects also poses a significant risk to fruit production by negatively impacting on crop production. In response, top fruit growers have articulated the need to effectively manage pollination services by wild insects in a way that is cost effective in order to maintain production and quality in the face of continued environmental change. Our project will develop high quality science to address this need by designing and testing three pollinator management strategies in field scale trials in commercial apple orchards. These include establishing flower rich strips to provide food and shelter for pollinators, providing nesting habitat for ground nesting bees, and adapting the number and placement of 'polleniser' trees in orchards to increase levels of pollination.Apple trees are predominantly self-incompatible and require pollen from 'polleniser' trees to set fruit, so although they don't produce saleable fruit, pollenisers are planted in orchards. Currently the number of pollinisers planted is based on a rule of thumb of 1 polleniser for every 12 apples trees. As a first step in this project we will trial different numbers and arrangements of polliniser tree in study orchards and measure how this effects pollination and apple production in order to establish an optimum arrangement and ratio.Flower strips are known to benefit pollinators. In this project, for the first time, we will design bespoke flower strips specifically aimed at supporting known apple pollinators. We will design our flower strips to contain plants that are particularly good for ground nesting bees and bumblebees which have been identified as top pollinators in apple orchards. Furthermore, we will top our margins (i.e. use a high level cut to remove just the flowers) during apple flowering to push pollinators off the flower strips and onto the apple blossom thus maximising the benefit strips provide. The impact of these targeted flower strips on pollinators and apple production will be measured in field scale trials in commercial orchards.While the provision of floral resources for pollinators is a well-established approach for increasing pollinator numbers, provision of nesting sites has been widely overlooked and little is known about the effect this can have on pollination service. In this project we will create novel ground nesting bee nest sites in our study orchards and measure the impact these have on bee populations and their contribution to the pollination of apples.Findings from our field trials will be brought together, and the cost of interventions and the economic return in terms of long-term improvements in quality and production will be established. Our overarching aim is to understand the mechanistic basis of how these three interventions, individually and in combination, effect the value of pollination service contributions to production and profit, so that we can "engineer" the most effective in-orchard interventions. The costs and benefits of these approaches will be assessed to allow specific management recommendations to be made to growers that are practical to implement and provide proven economic returns to growers by supporting long-term stable pollination of apple orchards.