School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6AR, UK.
Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 7;10(1):2102. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-58518-1.
The benefits of insect pollination to crop yield are used to justify management decisions across agricultural landscapes but current methods for assessing these benefits may underestimate the importance of context. We quantify how the effects of simulated insect pollination vary between five faba bean cultivars, and to what extent this changes between years, scales, yield parameters, and experimental methods. We do this by measuring responses to standardised hand pollination treatments in controlled experiments in flight cages and in the field. Pollination treatments generally improved yield, but in some cases yield was lower with additional pollination. Pollination dependence varied with cultivar, ranging from 58% (loss in yield mass per plant without pollination) in one cultivar, to a lower yield with pollination in another (-51%). Pollination dependence also varied between flight cage and field experiments (-10 to 37% in the same cultivar and year), year (4 to 33%; same cultivar and yield parameter), and yield parameter (-4 to 46%; same cultivar and year). This variability highlights that to be robust, assessments of pollination benefits need to focus upon marketable crop outputs at a whole-plant or larger scale while including and accounting for the effects of different years, sites, methodologies and cultivars.
昆虫授粉对作物产量的益处被用来证明农业景观中管理决策的合理性，但目前评估这些益处的方法可能低估了背景的重要性。我们量化了模拟昆虫授粉在五个蚕豆品种之间的影响有何不同，以及这种影响在多大程度上随年份、规模、产量参数和实验方法而变化。我们通过在飞行笼和田间的对照实验中测量对标准化人工授粉处理的反应来做到这一点。授粉处理通常会提高产量，但在某些情况下，额外的授粉会导致产量下降。授粉依赖性因品种而异，从一个品种的 58%（无授粉时每株植物的产量损失）到另一个品种的授粉时产量降低（-51%）。授粉依赖性还在飞行笼和田间实验之间变化（同一品种和年份中为-10%至 37%）、年份（4%至 33%；同一品种和产量参数）和产量参数（-4%至 46%；同一品种和年份）之间变化。这种可变性突出表明，为了稳健起见，授粉益处的评估需要集中在整个植物或更大规模的可销售作物产量上，同时包括和考虑不同年份、地点、方法和品种的影响。
