Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução da Biodiversidade, Escola de Ciência, , Pontifícia Univ Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brasil.
Laboratório e Museu de Entomologia, Departamento de Diagnóstico e Pesquisa Agropecuária, Secretaria de Agricultura, Pecuária e Desenvolvimento Rural, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil.
Neotrop Entomol. 2020 Aug;49(4):511-524. doi: 10.1007/s13744-020-00762-1. Epub 2020 Mar 11.
Most cultivars of apple trees are highly dependent on insects for successful pollination and fruit production. In this study, we evaluated the insect diversity in apple orchards of southern Brazil and verified whether or not there is a relationship between the diversity of insect visitors and the characteristics (weight, seed number, and symmetry) of the fruits of 'Fuji' and 'Gala' apples produced by the orchards. We also evaluated the diversity of insects on flowering weeds within apple orchards and compared it with the apple flowers. Diversity of anthophilous insects was low, in general, and differed between the regions. Furthermore, regarding insect diversity, orchards were grouped by management system: organic orchards were more similar to each other than to conventional orchards. The insect diversity of weed flowers was higher than apple flowers, but insect abundance was greater on apple flowers, suggesting that weeds may increase insect diversity within apple orchards and may sustain pollinators. We found a positive effect of insect diversity on the number of seeds of 'Fuji' apples and of honeybee abundance on their weight, suggesting that honeybee management is important in the studied areas. In contrast, we found no significant effect of insect diversity and abundance on 'Gala' apple characteristics. Despite this, the analyses of the seeds of 'Gala' apples indicate that the orchards may suffer a pollination deficit, which could be overcome by improving insect pollination. These results reinforce previous findings that insect diversity is important for apple yield, but its influence varies with cultivar.
大多数苹果树品种高度依赖昆虫进行成功授粉和果实生产。在这项研究中，我们评估了巴西南部苹果园的昆虫多样性，并验证了果园中昆虫访客的多样性与‘富士’和‘嘎拉’苹果果实的特征（重量、种子数和对称性）之间是否存在关系。我们还评估了苹果园内开花杂草上昆虫的多样性，并将其与苹果花进行了比较。总的来说，花的昆虫多样性较低，并且在不同地区之间存在差异。此外，关于昆虫多样性，果园按照管理系统进行分组：有机果园彼此之间比常规果园更相似。杂草花的昆虫多样性高于苹果花，但苹果花上的昆虫丰度更高，这表明杂草可能会增加苹果园内的昆虫多样性，并为传粉者提供支持。我们发现昆虫多样性对‘富士’苹果种子数有正向影响，而对蜜蜂丰度对其重量有正向影响，这表明在研究区域中，蜜蜂管理很重要。相比之下，我们发现昆虫多样性和丰度对‘嘎拉’苹果特征没有显著影响。尽管如此，对‘嘎拉’苹果种子的分析表明，果园可能存在授粉不足的情况，可以通过改善昆虫授粉来克服。这些结果加强了先前的发现，即昆虫多样性对苹果产量很重要，但它的影响因品种而异。
