Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment最新文献

{"title":"Enhancing soil ecological stoichiometry and orchard yield through ground cover management: A meta-analysis across China","authors":"Weiting Ding ,&nbsp;Huizhou Gao ,&nbsp;Zhidong Qi ,&nbsp;Liangjie Sun ,&nbsp;Chengwei Zheng ,&nbsp;Jinsong Huang ,&nbsp;Vilim Filipović ,&nbsp;Hailong He","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109556","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109556","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ground cover management (GCM) is a critical agricultural practice that influences soil ecological stoichiometry (SES) and orchard productivity. However, its effects on soil carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) dynamics and their implications for fruit yield remain poorly understood. This study synthesizes 12,486 paired observations from 415 studies to assess the impact of GCM on soil SES and orchard yield across China. Results indicate that GCM significantly increases soil C (20.0 %), N (15.0 %), and P (13.0 %) concentrations, as well as C:N (4.9 %), C:P (6.6 %), and N:P (2.6 %) ratios, leading to a 13.9 % improvement in fruit yield. The effects of GCM vary with various management practices and environmental factors. Mowing enhances soil C (20.0 %) sequestration and yield (17.4 %) more effectively than no mowing (19.0 % C, 1.9 % yield). A random forest model identifies mean annual precipitation (MAP) and mean annual temperature (MAT) as key climatic drivers of SES and yield, with maximum yield benefits (14.5 %–18.2 %) observed in cooler, drier regions (MAP ≤ 600 mm, MAT ≤ 15 °C). These findings highlight GCM as a sustainable strategy for improving soil health and maintaining orchard productivity under variable climatic conditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"384 ","pages":"Article 109556"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143437720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integrating straw return and tillage practices to enhance soil organic carbon sequestration in wheat–maize rotation systems in the North China Plain","authors":"Hua Han ,&nbsp;Daijia Fan ,&nbsp;Shuxia Liu ,&nbsp;Rong Jiang ,&nbsp;Daping Song ,&nbsp;Guoyuan Zou ,&nbsp;Ping He ,&nbsp;Minyu Wang ,&nbsp;Wentian He","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109555","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109555","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Straw return is a crucial strategy for enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in winter wheat–summer maize rotation systems in the North China Plain. However, the effects of straw return combined with different tillage practices on SOC sequestration under different environmental and management conditions across the soil profile remain unclear. A meta-analysis was conducted based on 2525 pairs of observations to investigate the effects of straw return combined with no tillage (NT), reduced tillage (RT), and conventional tillage (CT) on SOC content in wheat–maize rotation systems in the North China Plain. The results indicated that, compared with straw removal, straw return with NT and RT significantly increased the SOC content in the 0–40 cm layer, which was attributed to reduced soil disturbance and promoted SOC surface accumulation. The largest increase was observed in the 0–20 cm layer under NT (12.7 %) and in the 20–40 cm layer under RT (12.7 %). CT showed the greatest increase in SOC content below 40 cm (10.0 %), and RT did not affect SOC below the 40 cm layer relative to CT because deep tillage increased inputs of straw C and transferred topsoil with higher SOC to the subsoil layer. Mean annual precipitation, initial SOC content, and straw quantity were the major drivers regulating the response of SOC sequestration to straw return. Specifically, regions with mean annual temperatures above 15℃ and precipitation over 700 mm had a greater increase in SOC under straw return. Straw return under NT and RT led to the largest increase in SOC content when initial SOC was between 5 and 10 g kg⁻¹ or with a straw return duration of 16–20 years. Straw return under CT showed the greatest increase when initial SOC exceeded 10 g kg⁻¹ or with a straw return duration of 6–10 years. SOC content reached the highest level under RT and CT with a straw quantity of 10–15 t ha⁻¹ and under NT with a straw quantity of less than 10 t ha⁻¹. Structural equation modeling showed that climatic conditions were positively correlated with the response of SOC to straw return and that soil properties and management practices exhibited a negative correlation. The effects of straw return combined with different tillage practices on the C footprint of agricultural systems should be explored in further research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"384 ","pages":"Article 109555"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143437722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Potential measures to reduce nitrate and nitrous oxide losses from renovated grasslands","authors":"Jordy van 't Hull ,&nbsp;Jantine van Middelkoop ,&nbsp;Herman van Schooten ,&nbsp;Mart Ros ,&nbsp;Jan Willem van Groenigen ,&nbsp;Gerard Velthof","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109549","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109549","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Grassland renovation (grassland renewal or temporary conversion to arable land) is a common practice employed by farmers to reverse declining yields in agricultural grasslands. Renovation practices may lead to substantial nitrate (NO₃) leaching and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions. Farmers lean towards renovating grasslands in autumn instead of spring because of better sward establishment and low weed infestation. Limited nitrogen (N) uptake of renewed grassland during autumn may, however, increase the potential risk of NO₃ leaching and N₂O emission. Potential options to mitigate these N losses are reduction in tillage intensity and N application rate, or the application of nitrification inhibitors. We assessed the effects of these measures as well as timing of renewal and the conversion to grassland to maize on NO₃ leaching and N₂O emissions after one growing season. Five replicated field experiments were conducted of one year each at five locations in the Netherlands. We measured crop yield, soil mineral N, NO₃ concentrations in groundwater and N₂O emission. Averaged over all experiments, the measures had an effect on NO₃ concentration in groundwater, although not significant. The highest NO₃ concentrations in groundwater were observed after autumn renewal (17.2 mg NO₃-N L⁻¹), autumn renewal combined with mitigation strategies (12.8–19.4 mg NO₃-N L⁻¹) and conversion to maize (12.5–12.8 mg NO₃-N L⁻¹), with all of these treatments exceeding the European norm of 11.3 mg NO₃-N L⁻¹. Concentrations after renewal in spring were lower (3.1 mg NO₃-N L⁻¹) and did not lead to an increase compared to the control (4.4 mg NO₃-N L⁻¹). N₂O emissions increased significantly directly after grassland renewal relative to the reference grassland and N₂O fluxes were similar in spring and autumn. We conclude that autumn renewal leads to significant increases in the risk of NO₃ leaching which cannot be mitigated by the technical measures in this study.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"384 ","pages":"Article 109549"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143428998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Soil rhizobia promote plant yield by increasing tolerance to pests and pathogens under field conditions","authors":"Paul J. Chisholm ,&nbsp;Akaisha Charlton ,&nbsp;Riley M. Anderson ,&nbsp;Liesl Oeller ,&nbsp;John P. Reganold ,&nbsp;David W. Crowder","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109552","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109552","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Nitrogen-fixing, root-colonizing rhizobia are abundant soil microbes that form mutualisms with legumes. Rhizobia provide direct benefits to hosts by fixing nitrogen and promoting nutrient acquisition. However, whether rhizobia indirectly alter plant yield by affecting insect pests and insect-borne pathogens is less well understood, with conflicting results from existing lab studies. Here we used a field experiment to test whether effects of rhizobia on plants extended beyond nitrogen provisioning to include greater tolerance to aphids and pathogens. Specifically, we manipulated field soil with four treatments: (i) untreated, (ii) sterilized, (iii) sterilized with nitrogen fertilizer, and (iv) sterilized with rhizobia; we then assessed the direct effects on plant yields as well as tolerance to pea aphids (<em>Acyrthosiphon pisum</em>) and an aphid-borne pathogen, <em>pea enation mosaic virus</em> (PEMV). Peas grown in soil inoculated with rhizobia had fewer aphids and lower PEMV incidence, which had strong positive effects on plant yield. Structural equation models further showed that rhizobia inoculation outperformed synthetic nitrogen fertilization in improving pea tolerance to aphids and PEMV, and rhizobia in turn had greater benefits on yields than fertilizer. In contrast, sterilization of soil increased aphid abundance and PEMV incidence compared to rhizobia-inoculated treatments and decreased pea yields. Our results show that mutualistic soil microbes can exert strong effects on aboveground pathosystems by directly promoting plant growth and altering the tolerance of plants to insects and pathogens.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"384 ","pages":"Article 109552"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143437783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Plant and microbial communities follow fast-to-slow strategies in response to grazing in an arid rangeland","authors":"Jian-Guo Ma,&nbsp;Jian-Fei Yu,&nbsp;Xiao-Bo Wang,&nbsp;Fu-Jiang Hou","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109550","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109550","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Biotic and abiotic resources in arid area have been threatened by the disturbance of human activities. It remains unclear what life strategies plant and microorganisms use to cope with livestock grazing, and how these strategies are associated with soil metabolic compounds. Based on a 22-year grazing experiment in an arid rangeland on the Loess Plateau, we investigated changes in the resource strategies of plant and soil bacterial communities in response to grazing pressure by examining plant morphological traits and bacterial ribosomal RNA gene operon (<em>rrn</em>) copy number, as well as changes in their associated soil metabolites. With increasing grazing pressure, both plant and soil bacterial communities followed a fast-to-slow resource acquisition strategy. Plant traits related to fast-growing strategy were replaced by traits related to slow-growing strategy, shifting from higher specific leaf area, specific root length, and plant height to higher root and leaf tissue density. Bacterial <em>rrn</em> copy number also decreased with increased grazing intensity, indicating that the soil bacterial community tends to change from <em>r</em>-strategy to <em>K</em>-strategy. A small portion (7/144) of soil metabolites played a significant role in the plant fast-slow gradient, and their abundances decreased with increasing grazing pressure. These metabolites were positively correlated with plant slow-growing strategy and bacterial <em>rrn</em> copy number, but negatively correlated with plant fast-growing strategy. Our work indicates a unified fast-to-slow strategy that above- and below-ground organisms apply to cope with grazing intensification, highlighting that plant fast-growing strategy may rely on soil metabolic activities. This contributes to the monitoring and sustainable management of intensively grazed arid rangelands.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"384 ","pages":"Article 109550"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143429030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Intensive agriculture influences functional diversity, redundancy and trait profile of bee community and interacting plant community in a tropical agricultural landscape","authors":"Anirban Chakraborty ,&nbsp;Parthiba Basu","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109544","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109544","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The impact of agricultural intensification on bee community functional structure remains poorly understood. It may be assumed that agricultural intensification will influence trait diversity in the bee community through its effect on traits in the interacting plant community, as well as the modification of nesting habitats and insecticide exposure. Agricultural intensification may act as an environmental filter influencing species diversity, functional diversity and their inter-relationship, i.e., functional redundancy or complementarity in the bee and plant species assemblage. This may result in some specific traits in the bee and plant communities existing in a given landscape. From our study across 30 sites in 3 tropical agricultural landscapes we found that while functional diversity decreased along a gradient of increasing agricultural intensification, both plant and bee communities had higher functional redundancy. High agricultural intensity favoured a limited number of plant and bee species. While most of the species underwent reduced abundance, a handful of species with similar functional traits in the plant and bee communities survived. Plant communities shifted towards larger floral displays and less tubular flowers with reduced plant height in intensive agro-landscapes, where smaller body size and shorter tongue length were predominant in the bee community ‘traitscape’ with a higher abundance of soil-nesting bees. Our study pointed out the vulnerable functional areas regarding conservation of plant and bee communities in agricultural landscapes. A more targeted restoration strategy should be aided by this information for complimentary delivery of pollination service in the landscape.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"383 ","pages":"Article 109544"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Environmental drivers, spatiotemporal dynamics, and pollination effectiveness of insect floral visitors in Australian seed carrot agroecosystems","authors":"Abby E. Davis ,&nbsp;Lena A. Schmidt ,&nbsp;Karen C.B.S. Santos ,&nbsp;Raylea Rowbottom ,&nbsp;Amy Lucas ,&nbsp;Samantha Harrington ,&nbsp;Cameron Spurr ,&nbsp;Romina Rader","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109553","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109553","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Hybrid cropping systems generally depend on insect pollinators to produce high quality yields. In this study, we identified the floral insect community of Australian carrot agroecosystems and evaluated how the location of plants within fields and select environmental conditions (temperature, relative humidity) impacted visitor abundance to carrot flowers. We further evaluated the pollination effectiveness of select insect visitors based on the time of day the pollination event took place. Out of 26,083 carrot floral visitors observed, we identified 52 different insects (33 species and 19 morphospecies) from 26 families. Of these visitors, 86 % belonged to the families Coccinellidae (Coleoptera), Apidae (Hymenoptera), Halictidae (Hymenoptera), and Syrphidae (Diptera). Wild variegated lady beetles (<em>Hippodamia variegata</em> Goeze, 1777) were the most abundant floral visitor observed on hybrid parent lines, while European honey bees (<em>Apis mellifera</em> Linnaeus, 1758) were the most abundant visitor of open-pollinated lines. The abundance of common bee, beetle, and fly taxa differed throughout the day (range: 05:00–17:00) based on temperature (10.5ºC to 39.5ºC) and relative humidity (19.7 %–94.7 %). Further, temporal complementary was observed in measures of pollination performance as <em>A. mellifera</em> and the European drone fly, <em>Eristalis tenax</em> (Linnaeus, 1758), deposited more pollen grains onto hybrid carrot floral stigmas compared to the native halictid bee <em>Lasioglossum cognatum</em> (Smith, 1853) before 12:00 (05:00–12:00), while <em>L. cognatum</em> deposited more pollen grains onto flowers compared to <em>A. mellifera</em> and <em>E. tenax</em> after 12:00 (12:00 and 17:00). The results of this study imply that integrated management practices to support the resource needs of wild bee and fly taxa can potentially provide increased pollination services to carrot seed crops.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"383 ","pages":"Article 109553"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Soil microbial and plant biomass carbon allocation within perennial and annual grain cropping systems","authors":"Galen Bergquist ,&nbsp;Craig Sheaffer ,&nbsp;Manbir Rakkar ,&nbsp;Don Wyse ,&nbsp;Jacob Jungers ,&nbsp;Jessica Gutknecht","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109535","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109535","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Perennial crops may improve the environmental sustainability of agriculture through their continuous growth, low inputs, and high root biomass. Extensive root growth of perennial grass crops, especially, can confer benefits such as improved soil health and soil carbon (C) storage both directly through biomass production and indirectly through stimulating soil microbial communities. To test these ideas, we compared crop productivity (grain, vegetative, and root biomass), soil microbial abundance, and soil microbial activity across six cropping systems for three years (2017–2019). The six cropping systems included the perennial species intermediate wheatgrass <em>(Thinopyrum intermedium</em> (Host.) Barkw. &amp; D.R. Dewey<em>;</em> IWG), alfalfa (<em>Medicago sativa</em> L.), and a biculture of both. Annual crop rotations included wheat, soybean, and corn (<em>Zea mays</em>). IWG monocultures produced an average of 7.4 Mg ha⁻¹ of root biomass over three years, two to three times more than annual systems. Because of early spring and fall vegetative growth, IWG and alfalfa had higher canopy density for a greater duration of the growing season than annual crops. IWG also had higher soil respiration in 2017 and 2019. These growth attributes of IWG were translating to higher fungal and Gram-negative bacterial lipid biomass than alfalfa or annual crops in 2019, also the year of the highest general microbial growth. The abundant root growth, annual duration of growing period, and conducive environment for microbial growth under IWG systems indicates the potential for future C storage, which may be offset to a degree by increased soil respiration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"383 ","pages":"Article 109535"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419705","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enhancing soil quality and nematode diversity through sustainable tillage and organic fertilization in the Loess Plateau's semi-arid farmlands","authors":"Yaqi Fan ,&nbsp;Duo Gao ,&nbsp;Lijing Zhang ,&nbsp;Yiyu Wang ,&nbsp;Zhixia Yan ,&nbsp;Laichun Guo ,&nbsp;Tingmiao Huang ,&nbsp;Yuejing Qiao","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109542","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109542","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To explore the impact of tillage and fertilization practices on enhancing the soil micro-ecological environment in the dry farmlands of the Loess Plateau, this study used nematodes as indicator organisms. We investigated the effects of three tillage methods (deep tillage, subsoiling, and no-tillage) and four fertilization methods (no fertilization, full chemical fertilizer, 50 % organic fertilizer substituting chemical fertilizer, and full organic fertilizer) on the soil nematode community and its functions. Our findings indicate that the interaction between tillage and fertilization significantly influenced the soil's total abundance of nematodes and trophic groups. Specifically, the total abundance of nematodes and the relative abundance of bacterial-feeding nematodes were higher under subsoiling in maize and no-tillage in wheat season. Moreover, the energy flux within the food web was more pronounced. Applying chemical fertilizers resulted in greater soil bulk density and a higher proportion of plant parasitic nematodes than other treatments, harming the diversity of soil nematode communities. The nematode community's abundance was positively correlated with alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen content. In summary, reducing tillage in the wheat-maize annual rotation system, implementing subsoiling in the maize season and no-tillage in the wheat season, combined with organic fertilizer application, can improve soil quality, improve nematode community structure and maintain the stability of the soil food web. This approach positively contributes to improving soil health and ecological stability in the dry farming regions of the Loess Plateau.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"383 ","pages":"Article 109542"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Variation in the pollen diet of managed bee species across European agroecosystems","authors":"Clément Tourbez ,&nbsp;Antoine Gekière ,&nbsp;Irene Bottero ,&nbsp;Marie-Pierre Chauzat ,&nbsp;Elena Cini ,&nbsp;Francesca Corvucci ,&nbsp;Joachim R. de Miranda ,&nbsp;Gennaro Di Prisco ,&nbsp;Christophe Dominik ,&nbsp;Francesca V. Grillenzoni ,&nbsp;Simon Hodge ,&nbsp;Tomasz Kiljanek ,&nbsp;Anina Knauer ,&nbsp;Marion Laurent ,&nbsp;Vicente Martínez-López ,&nbsp;Risto Raimets ,&nbsp;Janine M. Schwarz ,&nbsp;Deepa Senapathi ,&nbsp;Giorgia Serra ,&nbsp;Giovanni Tamburini ,&nbsp;Denis Michez","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109518","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109518","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Bee-mediated pollination plays a crucial role in sustaining global food production. However, while the demand for these pollination services is increasing, many bee species are in decline. To address this discrepancy, farmers use managed bee species to improve crop pollination. One key factor affecting pollination efficiency is the affinity for the crop of interest (<em>i.e.</em>, the extent to which a bee integrates floral resources of a crop into its diet). In this study, we characterised and compared the pollen foraging preferences of three managed bee species: <em>Apis mellifera</em>, <em>Bombus terrestris</em>, and <em>Osmia bicornis</em>, across European agricultural landscapes and across biogeographic regions. Managed populations of each bee species were experimentally established at 128 agricultural sites growing either apple or rapeseed, in landscapes representing gradients in terms of the proportion of cropland, in eight European countries. We conducted pollen store sampling and employed palynological analyses to describe the foraging preferences of these species and to extrapolate their suitability as pollinators for both crops. Our findings reveal that <em>A. mellifera</em> and <em>B. terrestris</em> exhibited a more generalised pollen diet compared to <em>O. bicornis</em>, which showed stronger preference to certain pollen forage plants, but these were mainly non-crop rather than crop plants. These results question the relevance of using <em>O. bicornis</em> in apple orchards and rapeseed crops given their poor affinity with these crops. Overall, <em>A. mellifera</em> collected the highest proportion of rapeseed pollen in its diet, and <em>A. mellifera</em> and <em>B. terrestris</em> collected higher proportions of apple pollen than <em>O. bicornis</em>. Our findings also highlight substantial variation in the percentage of focal crop pollen in the diet across biogeographic regions, while landscape composition had virtually no impact. These results provide valuable insights for selecting the most suitable managed bee species to enhance the pollination of two key crops in Europe.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"383 ","pages":"Article 109518"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}