Interactive effects of landscape-wide intensity of farming practices and landscape complexity on wild bee diversity
Résumé
Context: The local intensity of farming practices is considered as an important driver of biodiversity in
agricultural landscapes and its effect on biodiversity has been shown to interact with landscape complexity.
But the influence of landscape-wide intensity of farming practices on biodiversity and its combined
effect with landscape complexity have been little explored. Objective: In this study, we tested the interactive
effect of the landscape-wide intensity of farming practices and landscape complexity on the local
species richness and abundance of farmland wild bee communities. Methods: We captured wild bees in 96 crop fields and explored the effect of landscape-wide intensity of various farming practices along a gradient of land-
scape complexity (proportion of semi-natural habitats). Results: We found that species richness and abun-
dance of wild bees were more positively influenced by landscape complexity in highly insecticide-sprayed
landscapes than in less intensively managed landscapes. In contrast, we found that the positive effect of
landscape complexity on bee species richness only occurred in landscapes with low nitrogen inputs.
Conclusions: Our study demonstrates the interactive effects of landscape-wide farming intensity and land-
scape complexity in shaping the diversity of farmland wild bee communities. We conclude that the manage-
ment of farming intensity at the landscape-scale could mitigate the effects of habitat loss on wild bee decline
and would help to maintain pollination services in agricultural landscapes.