Removing non-crop flowers within orchards promotes the decline of pollinators, not their conservation: A comment on McDougall et al. (2021)
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Author
Nabaes Jodar, Diego N.
Botías, Cristina
Garibaldi, Lucas A.
Hunicken, Pablo L.
Velado-Alonso, Elena
Zaragoza-Trello, Carlos
Publication date
2023-05-17ISSN
1752-458X
Abstract
1. Abundant and diverse floral resources are needed for the preservation of pollinator populations and the services they provide to human societies. However, pollinators are negatively affected by several agricultural practices, among which pesticide use and ‘weed’ removal stand out.
2. McDougall et al. (2021) published a paper titled ‘Managing orchard groundcover to reduce pollinator foraging post-bloom’, where they propose removing the within-field flowering ground vegetation after the mass flowering period of the crop ends, to reduce pesticide exposure.
3. They consider this is a bee conservation strategy, after observing it reduces the abundance and diversity of pollinators within the crop. However, despite assuming this implied a realisation of an expected reduction in pesticide exposure, this was not quantified.
4. Here, we give three main arguments against the proposal of the authors, that is, the need for providing accessible, sufficient, safe and seasonally-spread feeding resources to crop pollinators, the potential role of diverse floral resources in their pesticide tolerance, and the urgent need to reduce pesticide use and impact in agriculture.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Accepted version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
632 - Plant damage, injuries. Plant diseases. Pests, organisms injurious to plants. Plant protection
Pages
18
Publisher
Wiley
Is part of
Insect Conservation and Diversity
Citation
Nabaes Jodar, Diego N., Néstor Pérez-Méndez, Cristina Botías, Lucas A. Garibaldi, Pablo L. Hunicken, Elena Velado-Alonso, Carlos Zaragoza-Tello. 2023. “Removing non-crop flowers within orchards promotes the decline of pollinators, not their conservation: A comment on McDougall et al. (2021)”. Insect Conservation and Diversity. doi: 10.1111/icad.12648
Grant agreement number
EC/H2020/862480/EU/SHOWCASing synergies between agriculture, biodiversity and Ecosystem services to help farmers capitalising on native biodiversity/SHOWCASE
Program
Cultius Extensius Sostenibles
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- ARTICLES CIENTÍFICS [2685]
Rights
Copyright © 2023 Royal Entomological Society.