Assessing flower-visiting arthropod diversity in apple orchards through metabarcoding of environmental DNA from flowers and visual census

Arthropods are essential in maintaining healthy and productive agricultural ecosystems. Agricultural crops such as apples are typically pollinated by­­­­­­­ domesticated honey bees, but wild bees and other arthropod flower visitors also contribute to pollination. Flower visitors can also be natural enemies of crop-pests or herbivores. Biodiversity is under pressure, and knowledge of wildflower­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ visitors is an important tool in designing orchards that can support high functional biodiversity. In our study, we assessed the diversity of arthropod flower visitors in four Danish apple orchards using both molecular and non-molecular techniques to study arthropod communities in agricultural ecosystems. Arthropod DNA collected from apple flowers was analysed using a DNA metabarcoding approach using the mitochondrial COI marker, while arthropod pollinators were recorded through visual assessment surveys. These complementary techniques resulted in a total of 19 arthropod taxa..., Arthropods were sampled in four apple orchards on Sealand, Denmark; one located 20 km north of Copenhagen (Frydenlund), two located 25 km and 37 km south-west of Copenhagen respectively (Kildebrønde, and Ventegodtgaard), and finally the Pometum, located 16 km west of Copenhagen, belonging to University of Copenhagen (Fig. 1A and see Supplemental information 1 Table S1). Sites were separated by at least 9 km and located in an agricultural matrix. While Frydenlund and Kildebrønde were relatively large orchards with more than 20 rows of apples (more than 100m wide), apple plots at the Pometum and Ventegodtgaard were only 7 and 10 rows wide respectively (less than 40m wide). Ventegodtgaard was managed organically while the other three followed integrated pest management (IPM). We used the term organic as eco-friendly farming managed according to the Danish state approval. In Denmark, IPM management permits the use of few insecticides, principally pyrethroids. Only Pometum orchard had a trea...,  
, # Data from: Assessing flower-visiting arthropod diversity in apple orchards through metabarcoding of environmental DNA from flowers and visual census

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.w0vt4b8vk](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w0vt4b8vk)

## Description of the data and file structure

Assessing flower-visiting arthropod diversity in apple orchards through metabarcoding of environmental DNA from flowers and visual census. All files are stored in Zenodo under the Supplmental Information Related works link, except for file #5 which is hosted on Dryad.

### Files and variables

#### **File: 1._Supp1.xlsx**

**Description:** Supplemental Tables S1 to S13

#### File: 2._Supp2.docx

**Description:** Supplemental 2- Figures S1 to S2

#### File: 3._My_code_pollinators.bash.zip

**Description:** Bioinformatic script used to generate metabarcoding data contained in Supp1

#### File: 4.Paper_Rscript.Rmd

**Description:** R scripts used to generate metabarcoding and visual census data (Rmd) contained in S...,