Abstract
Insect pollinators provide important crop pollination services but are declining in response to lack of diverse flower resources and exposure to pesticides. Despite increasing evidence that the benefits of insect pollination for crop production depend on other ecosystem services and crop management practices, investigations have mostly been limited to how pollination benefits are affected by insect pest control and soil fertility levels. Here we used a factorial cage experiment in the field to test how pollination by bumble bees, manual weed removal and fungicide application interactively shape faba bean (Vicia faba) yield components, and how weed removal and fungicide application affect bumble bee foraging behaviour. We found that insect pollination and weed removal increased faba bean yield components mostly additively, with insect pollination being the most important factor to maximise yield. The fungicide treatment did not affect crop yield, probably due to the low fungal pathogen incidence in the experiment, but instead affected bumble bee visitation behaviour. Bumble bees visited flowers of fungicide-sprayed plants more often than fungicide-free plants. This has potential consequences on bee health that should be further assessed. Guidelines on pesticide use should be improved by weighing benefits to agricultural productivity against risks for pollinators according to integrated pest and pollinator management principles. Our results emphasise that insect pollination can be an important factor for crop yield. The additive benefits of insect pollination and weed removal to crop yield indicates that they are crop production factors which can be managed for independently.
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Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
Insect pollination increased faba bean yield components.
- Taxon
- faba bean
Vicia fabae0 - Treatment
- insect pollinatione0
- Interactor
- insecte0pollinator
- Outcome
- faba bean yield componentse0
- Direction
- increasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“insect pollination and weed removal increased faba bean yield components mostly additively”
Claim · model-written summary
Weed removal increased faba bean yield components.
- Taxon
- faba beanVicia fabae0
- Treatment
- weed removale0
- Outcome
- faba bean yield componentse0
- Direction
- increasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“insect pollination and weed removal increased faba bean yield components mostly additively”
Claim · model-written summary
Insect pollination was the most important factor for maximizing faba bean yield.
- Taxon
- faba beanVicia fabat0
- Outcome
- yielde0
- Direction
- most importante0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“with insect pollination being the most important factor to maximise yield”
t0“faba bean yield”
t1“faba bean yield”
Claim · model-written summary
Fungicide treatment did not affect faba bean yield.
- Taxon
- faba beanVicia fabat0
- Treatment
- fungicide treatmente0
- Outcome
- crop yielde0
- Direction
- did not affecte0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The fungicide treatment did not affect crop yield”
t0“faba bean yield”
t1“faba bean yield”
Claim · model-written summary
Bumble bees visited flowers of fungicide-sprayed faba bean plants more often than fungicide-free plants.
- Taxon
- faba beanVicia fabat0
- Treatment
- fungicide-sprayede0
- Outcome
- Bumble bees visited flowerse0
- Direction
- more oftene0
- Comparator
- fungicide-free plantse0
BombusOrganisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Bumble bees visited flowers of fungicide-sprayed plants more often than fungicide-free plants”
t0“faba bean yield”
t1“faba bean yield”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors recommend improving pesticide use guidelines by weighing productivity benefits against pollinator risks.
- Taxon
- faba beanVicia fabat0
- Outcome
- Guidelines on pesticide use should be improvede0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Guidelines on pesticide use should be improved by weighing benefits to agricultural productivity against risks for pollinators according to integrated pest and pollinator management principles”
t0“faba bean yield”
t1“faba bean yield”
The same questions in other papers
fungicide · yield · Vicia faba (faba bean)Results differ
1 paper in the same direction as this paper · 11 in the opposite direction
- positive
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See all 13 papers →pollination · yield · Vicia faba (faba bean)Positive and negative results
6 papers in the same direction as this paper · 4 in the opposite direction · 1 reporting no difference from an alternative
- negative
- positive
- positive
8 papers more in this group
See all 12 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.