Growing complimentary crops and nutritionally rewarding cultivars to sustain insect pollinators and crop pollination on farms

种植免费作物和营养丰富的品种，以维持农场的昆虫授粉媒介和作物授粉

• 批准号: 2618419
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Sussex
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2618419
• 关键词: Growing; complimentary; crops; nutritionally; rewarding

Ongoing pollinator declines threaten food security and impair crop yields. A major driver of these declines is lack of sufficient flowers in farmland.Mass-flowering crops provide abundant resources for some pollinators for short periods, but there are large gaps on many farms when no crop is in flower.The student will investigate whether pollinator declines may be mitigated by choice of appropriate crops and/or cultivars, over time, at a farm scale.Oilseed rape, apples, strawberries and raspberries provide nectar and pollen for pollinators, but little attention has been paid to the relative rewards offered by the different cultivars. For example, some varieties of oilseed rape and apple are more attractive to pollinators but the reasons for this have not been investigated. Although visual and olfactory cues likely play a role in long to intermediate range attraction, bees in particular repeatedly return to the same floral resources. Presumably, some varieties provide better resource, e.g. nectar sugars and/or nutritional value of pollen. Growing more rewarding cultivars should benefit the crop, through repeated pollination visits, and benefit pollinator populations by providing higher value food for off-spring. It is thus surprising that plant breeders do not routinely consider attractiveness to pollinators when developing new cultivars, and few attempts have been made to evaluate the relative rewards provided by different cultivars.The student will quantify the floral resources (nectar volume, sugar concentration, protein, petal size) provided by the main commercial cultivars of oilseed rape, apple, pear, blackcurrant, raspberry and strawberry, and quantify the identity and abundance of pollinators attracted to each. They will map the phenology of these and other flowering crops commonly grown in SE England, with a view to providing continuity of flowering at a landscape scale, with the aim of providing recommendations for farmers and fruit growers.

传粉媒介的持续减少威胁粮食安全，损害作物产量。这些下降的一个主要原因是农田里缺乏足够的鲜花。大量开花的作物在短期内为一些传粉媒介提供了丰富的资源，但在许多农场，当作物不开花时，存在很大的缺口。学生将调查是否可以通过选择适当的作物和/或品种，随着时间的推移，在农场规模上减轻传粉媒介的减少。油菜、苹果、草莓和覆盆子为传粉媒介提供花蜜和花粉，但不同品种的相对回报很少受到关注。例如，某些品种的油菜和苹果对传粉者更有吸引力，但其原因尚未调查。尽管视觉和嗅觉线索可能在远距离到中距离吸引中发挥作用，但蜜蜂尤其会反复返回相同的花卉资源。据推测，一些品种提供了更好的资源，例如花蜜糖和/或花粉的营养价值。种植更多有回报的品种应该有利于作物，通过反复的授粉访问，并通过为后代提供更高价值的食物而有利于传粉者群体。因此，令人惊讶的是，植物育种家在培育新品种时通常不考虑对传粉者的吸引力，也很少有人尝试评估不同品种提供的相对回报。该学生将量化油菜、苹果、梨、黑加仑、覆盆子和草莓等主要商业品种提供的花卉资源（花蜜体积、糖浓度、蛋白质、花瓣大小），并量化每种品种吸引的传粉者的身份和数量。他们将绘制这些和其他通常生长在英格兰东南部的开花作物的物候图，以期在景观尺度上提供开花的连续性，目的是为农民和水果种植者提供建议。