Removing non-crop flowers within orchards promotes the decline of pollinators, not their conservation: A comment on McDougall et al. (2021)
Ver/Abrir
Autor/a
Nabaes Jodar, Diego N.
Botías, Cristina
Garibaldi, Lucas A.
Hunicken, Pablo L.
Velado-Alonso, Elena
Zaragoza-Trello, Carlos
Fecha de publicación
2023-05-17ISSN
1752-458X
Resumen
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.
Tipo de documento
Artículo
Versión del documento
Versión aceptada
Lengua
English
Materias (CDU)
632 - Enfermedades y protección de las plantas
Páginas
18
Publicado por
Wiley
Publicado en
Insect Conservation and Diversity
Citación
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
Número del acuerdo de la subvención
EC/H2020/862480/EU/SHOWCASing synergies between agriculture, biodiversity and Ecosystem services to help farmers capitalising on native biodiversity/SHOWCASE
Program
Cultius Extensius Sostenibles
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Copyright © 2023 Royal Entomological Society.