TY - CHAP

T1 - Pollination of apple variaties across Europe: Dependecy on cross pollination and visitor communities

AU - Boreux, Virginie Elsa

AU - Garratt, Michael

AU - Klein, Alexandra-Maria

AU - Kovacs-Hostyánszki, Aniko

AU - Mayer, Anastasia

AU - Somay, Laszlo

AU - Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf

N1 - Conference code: 43

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Pollinators, particularly bees, are of crucial importance for apple pollination, as most varieties require cross‐pollination with compatible polliniser trees to set fruits. Although a large number of wild bee species have been recorded visiting apple flowers, we do not have information on whether different varieties attract distinctive communities of flower visitors, and whether this is related to varying levels of dependency on cross pollination.The overall objective of this research is to compare the abundance, diversity and community structure of flower visitors in apple orchards between varieties and countries. We hypothesise that i) varieties vary in their dependency on cross pollination and insect visitation, ii) the diversity of visitor communities differs between varieties and that iii) the structure of these communities variesacross Europe.We investigated these questions in four locations (UK, Germany North, Germany South and Hungary). For the first hypothesis, we carried out bagging experiments on five varieties. Pollination treatments included hand pollination with cross and self pollen, no pollination, wind pollination and open pollination. For the second hypothesis, we surveyed the abundance and diversity of insect species visiting flowers in eight apple varieties in commercial orchards using transects and timed tree observations. For the third hypothesis, we selected a variety common to all study countries andcarried out the same surveys as for the second hypothesis.Here we present preliminary results from this study and discuss the implications that variability in both breeding systems and visitor communities has on orchard production.

AB - Pollinators, particularly bees, are of crucial importance for apple pollination, as most varieties require cross‐pollination with compatible polliniser trees to set fruits. Although a large number of wild bee species have been recorded visiting apple flowers, we do not have information on whether different varieties attract distinctive communities of flower visitors, and whether this is related to varying levels of dependency on cross pollination.The overall objective of this research is to compare the abundance, diversity and community structure of flower visitors in apple orchards between varieties and countries. We hypothesise that i) varieties vary in their dependency on cross pollination and insect visitation, ii) the diversity of visitor communities differs between varieties and that iii) the structure of these communities variesacross Europe.We investigated these questions in four locations (UK, Germany North, Germany South and Hungary). For the first hypothesis, we carried out bagging experiments on five varieties. Pollination treatments included hand pollination with cross and self pollen, no pollination, wind pollination and open pollination. For the second hypothesis, we surveyed the abundance and diversity of insect species visiting flowers in eight apple varieties in commercial orchards using transects and timed tree observations. For the third hypothesis, we selected a variety common to all study countries andcarried out the same surveys as for the second hypothesis.Here we present preliminary results from this study and discuss the implications that variability in both breeding systems and visitor communities has on orchard production.

KW - Biology

KW - Ecosystems Research

UR - https://www.gfoe.org/sites/default/files/abstractband_potsdam_2013.pdf

M3 - Published abstract in conference proceedings

T3 - Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft für Ökologie

SP - 85

BT - Building Bridges in Ecology – Linking Systems, Scales and Disciplines

PB - Gesellschaft für Ökologie

CY - Göttingen

T2 - 43rd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland - 2013

Y2 - 9 September 2013 through 12 September 2013

ER -