Determining optimal wildflower patch arrangements to maximize pollination services by wild bees in cultivated blueberry

北美人餐桌上每三口食物中就有一口是因为蜜蜂把花粉从一朵花传到另一朵花上。这些"授粉服务“主要由家养蜜蜂提供，但野生蜜蜂也发挥着重要作用。我们的重点是为加拿大种植的广泛和经济上重要的蓝莓作物提供授粉服务，特别是在弗雷泽山谷（BC）。许多蓝莓品种都适应了“蜂音授粉”，这是一种只有野生蜜蜂才能提供的服务。然而，野生蜜蜂的数量在地球仪范围内急剧下降，随之而来的是作物产量的下降。研究表明，以野花斑块形式的栖息地改善可以吸引和支持野生蜜蜂的数量。然而，目前，现有的研究只能用于提出非常一般的建议，而且还不清楚哪些修改对单个农场最有利。因此，弗雷泽山谷蓝莓种植者很难证明投资昂贵和/或耗时的景观操作是合理的。因此，有必要进行模拟工作，通过平行的实地工作，提供一个定量的手段，比较不同的野花种植安排在不同的农业景观。我们的目标是使用实地工作和数学工具来开发一个生物信息模型，该模型可用于确定在给定的农业景观中，对于给定的种植者，野花斑块的排列将产生最大的作物产量。由于最近的研究表明，花粉缺乏背后的机制从一个地区到另一个地区各不相同，所以我们选择一个特定的地区进行建模研究是很重要的。我们专注于弗雷泽山谷，因为这是加拿大最大的蓝莓种植区，该地区的授粉赤字很大（高达30%）。然而，我们的建模方法和工具将建立一个模板，可用于解决相同的研究问题，在其他蓝莓种植区（如新斯科舍省，安大略）和其他野生蜜蜂授粉作物。

One in every three bites of food on the North American table exists only because a bee moved pollen from one flower to another. These ``pollination services'' are largely provided by domestic honeybees, but wild bees have an important role. Our focus here is on the pollination services provided to the extensive and economically important cultivated blueberry crops grown in Canada, particularly in the Fraser Valley (BC). Many blueberry varietals are adapted to `buzz pollination,'' a service provided only by wild bees. Wild bee populations, however, are in dramatic decline across the globe, with subsequent reductions in crop productivity.Research suggests that habitat enhancements in the form of wildflower patches could attract and support wild bee populations. Currently, however, the available research can only be used to make very general recommendations, and it is unclear exactly what modifications would most benefit an individual farm. Consequently it is difficult for Fraser Valley blueberry growers to justify investing in expensive and/or time-consuming landscape manipulations. There is thus a need for modelling work, informed by parallel field work, to provide a quantitative means of comparing different wildflower planting arrangements in different agricultural landscapes. Our goal is to use field work and mathematical tools to develop a biologically-informed model that can be used to determine what arrangements of wildflower patches will yield the greatest crop yield in a given agricultural landscape for a given grower. Since recent research has shown that the mechanisms behind pollen deficits vary from one region to another, it is important that we select a particular region for our modelling study. We focus on the Fraser Valley, as this is the largest blueberry growing region in Canada, and pollination deficits in this region are significant (as high as 30%). Our modelling approach and tools, however, will establish a template that can be used to address the same research questions in other blueberry growing regions (e.g. Nova Scotia, Ontario) and in other wild bee-pollinated crops.