Pollinating insect populations, essential for maintaining wild plant diversity and agricultural productivity, rely on (semi)natural habitats. An increasing human population is encroaching upon and deteriorating pollinator habitats. Thus the population persistence of pollinating insects and their associated ecosystem services may depend upon on man-made novel habitats; however, their importance ...

Associations between yeasts and insect herbivores are widespread, and these inter-kingdom interactions play a crucial role in yeast and insect ecology and evolution. We report a survey of insect attraction to live yeast from a community ecology perspective. In the summer of 2013 we screened live yeast cultures of Metschnikowia pulcherrima, M. andauensis, M. hawaiiensis, M. lopburiensis, and Cry...

There is widespread concern over the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in the agro-ecosystem, due in part to their high water solubility which can lead to widespread contamination of non-target areas including standing surface water. Most studies investigating the negative fitness consequences of neonicotinoids have focused on bees, with little research on the impact on other non-target insects. ...

The introduction of sown wildflower strips favours the establishment of pollinator communities, with special reference to social Apoidea. Here, we evaluated the late summer flowering Cephalaria transsylvanica as suitable species for strips providing food for pollinators in paucity periods. C. transsylvanica showed no particular requirements in terms of seed germination and growth during summer....

One of the most invoked mechanisms mediating positive effect pollinator diversity on plant reproduction is pollinator's niche complementarity (i.e. partitioning resource use by different species). However, influence spatial and temporal crop pollination function rarely tested. We investigated complementary in explaining sunflower production comparing activity at edge centre fields over day. fou...