Christian Berger
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Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment
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Title
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The frequentation of flower strips by pollinating insects
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Authors
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Christian Berger (University of Applied Sciences Bingen, Berlinstraße 109, 55411
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Bingen am Rhein, Germany), Thomas Appel (University of Applied Sciences Bingen).
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Corresponding Address
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Thomas Appel
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Berlinstraße 109
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55411 Bingen am Rhein
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Tel: 06721 409-174
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E-Mail: appel@fh-bingen.de
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Key words
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Flowering seed mixtures; Bumblebees; Honeybees; Wildbees; Hoverflys;
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Biodiversity.
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Abstract
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Flower strips are valuable elements of a biotope network and play an important role
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in the agricultural landscape to increased the biodiversity in the arable land. The
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installation of flower strips with special seed mixtures is part of the Paula contractual
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nature conservation programme in the federal state Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
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and is financially supported. The concrete effect of those seed mixtures is often
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unknown. To estimate the effect of seed mixtures for flower strips concerning the
Christian Berger
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Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment
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frequency of the entomological fauna, honybees, wildbees, bumblebees and
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hoverflys were counted on a testing area in 12 different perennial and in 10 annual
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seed mixtures in the growing season of 2013. Every single seed mixture is part of the
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Paula-contractual nature conservation programme. The groups of insects were not
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distinguished in the species except by the honeybee. For the counting the method of
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observation was used. Between the insect data in the different seed mixtures were
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several significant differences detected. 15 seed mixtures show significant higher
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numbers of insects than the reference fields with natural spontaneous plant
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vegetation. Significantly more insects visited the seed mixture areas than the ...
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Alternativ noch besser, Daten liefern! Fifty percent more insects visited the ... (p =
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0.05).
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Even seed mixtures showed significant differences in insect data among each other.
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The results suggest a close correlation of seed mixtures with a high proportion of
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potentially blowing plant species and increasing insect numbers.