Sustainable Management of Orchard Pollination Services

昆虫传粉者为支持作物授粉和野生植物繁殖提供了重要的生态系统服务。据报道，传粉者的减少威胁到了这项服务，并可能对粮食安全产生严重影响。依赖昆虫授粉的关键作物是苹果，野生传粉者对英国苹果产量的贡献估计每年价值9500万GB。然而，在一些品种中发现了超过6000 GB/公顷的“授粉差距”，由于授粉不足，这些品种没有达到预期的产量和质量。这为种植者提供了一个通过更好的授粉来增加产量和利润的重大机会。据记载，传粉昆虫的减少也对水果生产构成了重大风险，因为它对作物产量产生了负面影响。作为回应，顶级果树种植者明确表示，需要以具有成本效益的方式有效地管理野生昆虫的授粉服务，以便在持续的环境变化中保持产量和质量。我们的项目将开发高质量的科学来满足这一需求，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者管理策略。这些措施包括建立盛开的花带为传粉者提供食物和庇护所，为地面筑巢的蜜蜂提供筑巢环境，以及调整果园中传粉者树的数量和位置以增加授粉水平。苹果树主要是自交不亲和的，需要来自传粉者树的花粉才能结果，所以尽管它们不会结出适销的果实，但传粉者会被种植在果园中。目前，根据经验，每12棵苹果树就有1个授粉者种植授粉器。作为这个项目的第一步，我们将在研究果园中试验不同数量和排列的授粉树，并测量这对授粉和苹果产量的影响，以建立最佳的排列和比例。众所周知，花带有利于授粉者。在这个项目中，我们将首次设计定制的花带，专门用于支持已知的苹果传粉者。我们将设计我们的花带，以包含特别适合地面筑巢的蜜蜂和大黄蜂的植物，这两种蜜蜂已被确定为苹果园的顶级传粉者。此外，我们将在苹果开花期间增加边际(即使用高水平切割只移除花朵)，将传粉者从花条上推到苹果花上，从而最大限度地发挥花条提供的好处。这些定向花带对传粉者和苹果产量的影响将在商业果园的田间试验中进行衡量。虽然为传粉者提供花卉资源是增加传粉者数量的公认方法，但提供筑巢地点一直被广泛忽视，人们对这对授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建新的地面筑巢蜂巢地点，并衡量这些地点对蜜蜂种群的影响以及它们对苹果授粉的贡献。我们将汇集田间试验的结果，并确定干预成本和长期提高质量和产量的经济回报。我们的首要目标是了解这三种干预措施如何单独或结合在一起影响授粉服务对产量和利润贡献的价值的机制基础，以便我们能够“设计”最有效的果园干预措施。将对这些方法的成本和收益进行评估，以便向种植者提出具体的管理建议，通过支持苹果园的长期稳定授粉，实施并向种植者提供经证明的经济回报。

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.