Flower handling time of neglected and commercial pollinators as a behavioral functional trait to evaluate potential pollination success in apple orchards

Pollinators are essential for the resilience of natural ecosystems and food production globally. Despite the undoubted progress that has been made in understanding the role of these animals in agroecosystems, we still have a poor understanding of different aspects of the behavior of more neglected pollinators. Our objective was to understand how the flower handling time of apple blossoms changes between different groups of pollinators, including managed and neglected species, to understand the impact of apple orchard features on this functional behavioral trait. We developed an experimental design where we compared apple flower handling time (response variable) in different groups of managed (commercial honeybees and bumblebees) and wild (solitary bees, beetles, flies, and butterflies) pollinators and the impact of apple orchard feature on this response, using fixed (orchard management, apple variety, locality), continuous (distance between orchards and native forest), and random (orchard size) variables. We found that beetles and flies have longer handling times on apple blossoms than bees, both native and managed, and butterflies. We did find that the pollinator group, locality, and distance between apple orchard and native forest were the most influential predictors of handling time on apple blossoms. Our results suggest that longer flower handling times could be interpreted as a key behavioral functional trait to more pollen load, increasing the likelihood of pollination effectiveness. However, local features of apple orchards and longer distances between them and native forests could impact negatively the foraging behavior diversity, particularly from neglected pollinators.

传粉者（pollinators）对于全球自然生态系统的韧性与粮食生产至关重要。尽管学界在阐明这类动物在农业生态系统（agroecosystems）中的作用方面已取得毋庸置疑的进展，但我们对更多被忽视的传粉类群的行为特征仍知之甚少。本研究旨在明确不同传粉类群（包括人工管理物种与被忽视物种）对苹果花的处理时长如何变化，并探究苹果园特征对这一功能性行为性状的影响。本研究设计了如下实验方案：以苹果花处理时长作为响应变量，对比人工管理型传粉者（商业化意蜂与熊蜂）与野生传粉者（独居蜂、甲虫、蝇类与蝶类）不同类群间的差异，并结合固定变量（果园管理模式、苹果品种、采样地点）、连续变量（果园与原生林的空间距离）与随机变量（果园面积），分析苹果园特征对该响应变量的影响。研究结果显示，相较于本土与人工管理的蜂类以及蝶类，甲虫与蝇类对苹果花的处理时长更长。本研究证实，传粉类群、采样地点以及苹果园与原生林的距离是影响苹果花处理时长的最关键预测因子。研究结果表明，更长的花处理时长可被视为一项关键的行为功能性状，有助于提升花粉载量，进而提高授粉成功的概率。但苹果园的本地特征以及其与原生林的较远间距，可能会对传粉行为的多样性产生负面影响，对被忽视的传粉类群而言尤为显著。