Food for Pollinators: Quantifying the Nectar and Pollen Resources of Urban Flower Meadows.

ABSTRACT: Planted meadows are increasingly used to improve the biodiversity and aesthetic amenity value of urban areas. Although many 'pollinator-friendly' seed mixes are available, the floral resources these provide to flower-visiting insects, and how these change through time, are largely unknown. Such data are necessary to compare the resources provided by alternative meadow seed mixes to each other and to other flowering habitats. We used quantitative surveys of over 2 million flowers to estimate the nectar and pollen resources offered by two exemplar commercial seed mixes (one annual, one perennial) and associated weeds grown as 300m2 meadows across four UK cities, sampled at six time points between May and September 2013. Nectar sugar and pollen rewards per flower varied widely across 65 speci

SUBMITTER: Hicks DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4920406 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature