High variability in the attractiveness of municipally-planted decorative plants to insects
Insect populations are declining globally. A major driver of this decline is land use change, including urbanisation. However, urban environments can also offer a wide range of floral resources to pollinators, through ornamental plantings, but these can vary widely in their attractiveness to insects...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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PeerJ Inc.
2024-11-01
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| Online Access: | https://peerj.com/articles/17762.pdf |
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| author | Tomer J. Czaczkes Carsten Breuss Christoph Kurze |
| author_facet | Tomer J. Czaczkes Carsten Breuss Christoph Kurze |
| author_sort | Tomer J. Czaczkes |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Insect populations are declining globally. A major driver of this decline is land use change, including urbanisation. However, urban environments can also offer a wide range of floral resources to pollinators, through ornamental plantings, but these can vary widely in their attractiveness to insects. Often, the largest single planter of ornamental plants in an urban area is the municipality. Here we evaluated the decorative plantings carried out by the city municipality of Regensburg, Germany, by systematically surveying insect visitations on different plant types in late summer, when forage is often limited for pollinators. We found a 130-fold difference from the least to the most attractive plants, and high variation in which insect groups were attracted to which plants. While honey bees, which are not a conservation concern, were the most common insect visitors, some decorative plants attracted a very large proportion of wild bees, flies, and wasps. Our results demonstrate that there is great scope for increasing the supply of urban forage to pollinators in general, and specific groups in particular, without requiring new decorative plant types to be sourced or planted. We argue that providing local evidence-based guidance to municipalities offers a quick and potentially cost-neutral method for supporting urban insect populations. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e23cbbad3b6f4667bb5f2bc60a6d13a0 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2167-8359 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-11-01 |
| publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PeerJ |
| spelling | doaj-art-e23cbbad3b6f4667bb5f2bc60a6d13a02024-11-08T15:05:12ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592024-11-0112e1776210.7717/peerj.17762High variability in the attractiveness of municipally-planted decorative plants to insectsTomer J. CzaczkesCarsten BreussChristoph KurzeInsect populations are declining globally. A major driver of this decline is land use change, including urbanisation. However, urban environments can also offer a wide range of floral resources to pollinators, through ornamental plantings, but these can vary widely in their attractiveness to insects. Often, the largest single planter of ornamental plants in an urban area is the municipality. Here we evaluated the decorative plantings carried out by the city municipality of Regensburg, Germany, by systematically surveying insect visitations on different plant types in late summer, when forage is often limited for pollinators. We found a 130-fold difference from the least to the most attractive plants, and high variation in which insect groups were attracted to which plants. While honey bees, which are not a conservation concern, were the most common insect visitors, some decorative plants attracted a very large proportion of wild bees, flies, and wasps. Our results demonstrate that there is great scope for increasing the supply of urban forage to pollinators in general, and specific groups in particular, without requiring new decorative plant types to be sourced or planted. We argue that providing local evidence-based guidance to municipalities offers a quick and potentially cost-neutral method for supporting urban insect populations.https://peerj.com/articles/17762.pdfUrbanisationPollinatorsEvidence-based policyDecorative plantsUrban biodiversity |
| spellingShingle | Tomer J. Czaczkes Carsten Breuss Christoph Kurze High variability in the attractiveness of municipally-planted decorative plants to insects PeerJ Urbanisation Pollinators Evidence-based policy Decorative plants Urban biodiversity |
| title | High variability in the attractiveness of municipally-planted decorative plants to insects |
| title_full | High variability in the attractiveness of municipally-planted decorative plants to insects |
| title_fullStr | High variability in the attractiveness of municipally-planted decorative plants to insects |
| title_full_unstemmed | High variability in the attractiveness of municipally-planted decorative plants to insects |
| title_short | High variability in the attractiveness of municipally-planted decorative plants to insects |
| title_sort | high variability in the attractiveness of municipally planted decorative plants to insects |
| topic | Urbanisation Pollinators Evidence-based policy Decorative plants Urban biodiversity |
| url | https://peerj.com/articles/17762.pdf |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tomerjczaczkes highvariabilityintheattractivenessofmunicipallyplanteddecorativeplantstoinsects AT carstenbreuss highvariabilityintheattractivenessofmunicipallyplanteddecorativeplantstoinsects AT christophkurze highvariabilityintheattractivenessofmunicipallyplanteddecorativeplantstoinsects |