Promoting pollinating insects in intensive agricultural matrices: field-scale experimental manipulation of hay-meadow mowing regimes and its effects on bees.

ABSTRACT: Bees are a key component of biodiversity as they ensure a crucial ecosystem service: pollination. This ecosystem service is nowadays threatened, because bees suffer from agricultural intensification. Yet, bees rarely benefit from the measures established to promote biodiversity in farmland, such as agri-environment schemes (AES). We experimentally tested if the spatio-temporal modification of mowing regimes within extensively managed hay meadows, a widespread AES, can promote bees. We applied a randomized block design, replicated 12 times across the Swiss lowlands, that consisted of three different mowing treatments: 1) first cut not before 15 June (conventional regime for meadows within Swiss AES); 2) first cut not before 15 June, as treatment 1 but with 15% of area left uncut serving as

SUBMITTER: Buri P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3887108 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature