Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, PTSC 217, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, Science and Engineering, Room 601, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA.
J Econ Entomol. 2021 Oct 13;114(5):2155-2161. doi: 10.1093/jee/toab145.
Agricultural dependency on insect-mediated pollination is increasing at the same time that pollinator populations are experiencing declines in diversity and abundance. Current pollinator research in agriculture focuses largely on diurnal pollinators, yet the evidence for pollination by moths and other nocturnal pollinators is growing. Apples are one of the most valuable and important fruits produced globally, and apple production is dependent on insect-mediated cross-pollination to generate a profitable crop. We examined contributions to apple production provided by nocturnal insects via an exclusion experiment. We compared the relative contributions to apple production provided by nocturnal and diurnal pollinators using fruit set, the likelihood of cluster pollination, and seed set. We found nocturnal pollinators capable of facilitating the production of as many apples at similar levels of pollination as diurnal pollinators. We further found evidence that nocturnal and diurnal pollinators pollinate synergistically, with pollination contributions being additive in one year of our study. Our research identifies significant contributions to apple production provided by nocturnal pollinators, which may interact with diurnal pollinators in ways that are currently unrecognized. Expansions of this research into additional pollinator-dependent crops and focused investigations on specific nocturnal insects will provide more accurate assessments of nocturnal-pollinator roles in agriculture and improve our overall understanding of pollination in agriculture.
农业对昆虫传粉的依赖正在增加，而传粉媒介的多样性和数量却在减少。目前农业中的传粉者研究主要集中在昼行性传粉者上，但有关蛾类和其他夜行性传粉者传粉的证据正在不断增加。苹果是全球最有价值和最重要的水果之一，苹果的生产依赖于昆虫介导的异花授粉来产生盈利的作物。我们通过排除实验来研究夜行性昆虫对苹果生产的贡献。我们通过果实着果率、群集授粉的可能性和种子着果率来比较夜行性和昼行性传粉者对苹果生产的相对贡献。我们发现，夜行性传粉者能够在类似的授粉水平下，为苹果的生产提供与昼行性传粉者相当的数量。我们进一步发现证据表明，夜行性和昼行性传粉者协同授粉，在我们研究的一年中，授粉贡献是累加的。我们的研究确定了夜行性传粉者对苹果生产的重要贡献，这些贡献可能以目前尚未被认识到的方式与昼行性传粉者相互作用。将这项研究扩展到其他依赖传粉者的作物，并对特定的夜行性昆虫进行集中调查，将提供对农业中夜行性传粉者作用的更准确评估，并提高我们对农业授粉的整体理解。
