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

传粉者的持续减少威胁着粮食安全，损害了作物产量。这些下降的一个主要原因是农田缺乏足够的花朵。大量开花的作物为一些传粉者提供了丰富的资源，但在许多农场，当没有作物开花时，有很大的缺口。学生将研究是否可以通过在农场规模上选择合适的作物和/或品种来缓解传粉者的衰退。油菜、苹果、草莓和树莓为传粉者提供花蜜和花粉，但很少有人关注不同品种提供的相对奖励。例如，一些油菜和苹果品种对传粉者更具吸引力，但原因尚未调查。虽然视觉和嗅觉暗示可能在长到中距离的吸引中发挥作用，但蜜蜂特别是反复回到相同的花卉资源。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。种植更有价值的品种应该有利于作物，通过反复授粉访问，并通过为后代提供更高价值的食物而使传粉者群体受益。因此，令人惊讶的是，植物育种者在开发新品种时没有常规地考虑对传粉者的吸引力，也很少尝试评估不同品种提供的相对回报。学生将量化主要商业品种油菜、苹果、梨、黑加仑、覆盆子和草莓提供的花卉资源(花蜜体积、糖浓度、蛋白质、花瓣大小)，并量化每个品种吸引的传粉者的身份和丰度。他们将绘制这些和其他通常在英格兰东南部种植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，目的是为农民和果农提供建议。

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.