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Pollinators on Cowpea Vigna unguiculata: Implications for Intercropping to Enhance Biodiversity

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Pollinators are a major part of global biodiversity and they provide ecosystem services important for the production of many crops. Their abundance and diversity have declined steadily in recent years. Loss of foraging resources through degradation and fragmentation of natural habita...

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Autores principales: Dingha, Beatrice N., Jackai, Louis E., Amoah, Barbara A., Akotsen-Mensah, Clement
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7827132/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33440887
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects12010054
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author Dingha, Beatrice N.
Jackai, Louis E.
Amoah, Barbara A.
Akotsen-Mensah, Clement
author_facet Dingha, Beatrice N.
Jackai, Louis E.
Amoah, Barbara A.
Akotsen-Mensah, Clement
author_sort Dingha, Beatrice N.
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Pollinators are a major part of global biodiversity and they provide ecosystem services important for the production of many crops. Their abundance and diversity have declined steadily in recent years. Loss of foraging resources through degradation and fragmentation of natural habitats has been a major factor. Enhancing floral resources in the environment can mitigate this decline. Cowpea nectar has been reported to make the crop attractive to pollinators. We evaluated twenty-four cowpea varieties for pollinator abundance and diversity using pan traps, sticky traps, and direct visual counts. Sticky traps captured the highest number of pollinators and pan traps the least. The highest number of pollinators was recorded on Penny Rile cowpea and the lowest on Iron and Clay which had no flowers. Whippoorwill had the most flowers and ranked third in number of pollinators. Our findings indicate that cowpeas can be used to improve pollinator efficiency. Intercropping pollinator-dependent crops with cowpea varieties such as Penny Rile, Dixielee, and Whippoorwill will not only provide resources for the pollinators but can also be effective in increasing pollinator number and activity to increase crop yields. ABSTRACT: Pollinators are on the decline and loss of flower resources play a major role. This raises concerns regarding production of insect-pollinated crops and therefore food security. There is urgency to mitigate the decline through creation of farming systems that encourage flower-rich habitats. Cowpea is a crop that produces pollen and nectar attractive to pollinators. Twenty-four cowpea varieties were planted, and the number of pollinators were counted using three sampling methods: pan traps, sticky traps, and direct visual counts. Five pollinator types (honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, wasps, and butterflies and moths), 11 and 16 pollinator families were recorded from direct visual counts, pan and sticky traps, respectively. Pollinator distribution varied significantly among varieties and sampling methods, with highest number on Penny Rile (546.0 ± 38.6) and lowest (214.8 ± 29.2) in Iron and Clay. Sticky traps accounted for 45%, direct visual counts (31%), and pan traps (23%) of pollinators. Pollinators captured by pan traps were more diverse than the other methods. The relationship between number of pollinators and number of flowers was significant (r(2) = 0.3; p = 0.009). Cowpea can increase resources for pollinators and could be used to improve pollinator abundance and diversity in different farming systems.
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spelling pubmed-78271322021-01-25 Pollinators on Cowpea Vigna unguiculata: Implications for Intercropping to Enhance Biodiversity Dingha, Beatrice N. Jackai, Louis E. Amoah, Barbara A. Akotsen-Mensah, Clement Insects Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Pollinators are a major part of global biodiversity and they provide ecosystem services important for the production of many crops. Their abundance and diversity have declined steadily in recent years. Loss of foraging resources through degradation and fragmentation of natural habitats has been a major factor. Enhancing floral resources in the environment can mitigate this decline. Cowpea nectar has been reported to make the crop attractive to pollinators. We evaluated twenty-four cowpea varieties for pollinator abundance and diversity using pan traps, sticky traps, and direct visual counts. Sticky traps captured the highest number of pollinators and pan traps the least. The highest number of pollinators was recorded on Penny Rile cowpea and the lowest on Iron and Clay which had no flowers. Whippoorwill had the most flowers and ranked third in number of pollinators. Our findings indicate that cowpeas can be used to improve pollinator efficiency. Intercropping pollinator-dependent crops with cowpea varieties such as Penny Rile, Dixielee, and Whippoorwill will not only provide resources for the pollinators but can also be effective in increasing pollinator number and activity to increase crop yields. ABSTRACT: Pollinators are on the decline and loss of flower resources play a major role. This raises concerns regarding production of insect-pollinated crops and therefore food security. There is urgency to mitigate the decline through creation of farming systems that encourage flower-rich habitats. Cowpea is a crop that produces pollen and nectar attractive to pollinators. Twenty-four cowpea varieties were planted, and the number of pollinators were counted using three sampling methods: pan traps, sticky traps, and direct visual counts. Five pollinator types (honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, wasps, and butterflies and moths), 11 and 16 pollinator families were recorded from direct visual counts, pan and sticky traps, respectively. Pollinator distribution varied significantly among varieties and sampling methods, with highest number on Penny Rile (546.0 ± 38.6) and lowest (214.8 ± 29.2) in Iron and Clay. Sticky traps accounted for 45%, direct visual counts (31%), and pan traps (23%) of pollinators. Pollinators captured by pan traps were more diverse than the other methods. The relationship between number of pollinators and number of flowers was significant (r(2) = 0.3; p = 0.009). Cowpea can increase resources for pollinators and could be used to improve pollinator abundance and diversity in different farming systems. MDPI 2021-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7827132/ /pubmed/33440887 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects12010054 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Dingha, Beatrice N.
Jackai, Louis E.
Amoah, Barbara A.
Akotsen-Mensah, Clement
Pollinators on Cowpea Vigna unguiculata: Implications for Intercropping to Enhance Biodiversity
title Pollinators on Cowpea Vigna unguiculata: Implications for Intercropping to Enhance Biodiversity
title_full Pollinators on Cowpea Vigna unguiculata: Implications for Intercropping to Enhance Biodiversity
title_fullStr Pollinators on Cowpea Vigna unguiculata: Implications for Intercropping to Enhance Biodiversity
title_full_unstemmed Pollinators on Cowpea Vigna unguiculata: Implications for Intercropping to Enhance Biodiversity
title_short Pollinators on Cowpea Vigna unguiculata: Implications for Intercropping to Enhance Biodiversity
title_sort pollinators on cowpea vigna unguiculata: implications for intercropping to enhance biodiversity
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7827132/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33440887
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects12010054
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