Heterogeneity of landscapes and farming practices - Effects on wild bee diversity and pollination ; Hétérogénéité des paysages et des pratiques agricoles - Effets sur la diversité des abeilles sauvages et la pollinisation

The ecological and agricultural importance of wild bees in farmlands stresses the needs for management strategies for these insect pollinators. Wild bees use multiple habitats in agricultural landscapes, such as semi-natural habitats (woodlands, hedgerows, permanent grasslands) and crop fields. This study aims to characterize the community structure of wild bees and assess pollination delivery along gradients of landscape heterogeneity – based on the composition and configuration of semi-natural habitats – and landscape-wide intensity of farming practices. Using a trait-based approach, based on traits determining resource-use by wild bee species, we showed that i) the least mobile species, solitary bees and ground-nesting species were more abundant in crop fields surrounded by large amounts of little-fragmented permanent grasslands, ii) crop fields surrounded by high amount of woodland edges supported a greater abundance of little-mobile bee species, late-emerging bees, social bees and polylectic bees, iii) oligolectic bee species were filtered out in highly forested landscapes, because these species could thrive on resources provided by the crop mosaic. We also found that the positive effect of the proportion of semi-natural habitats on bee diversity was greater in landscapes with intensively managed crop mosaic. Moreover, we showed that the local intensity of farming practices had as much influence on bee diversity as the proportion of semi-natural habitats. Finally, we showed that, depending on situations, the abundance fluctuations of dominant bee species or the occurrence of an assemblage of uncommon bee species can explain variations in pollination success. In the cases where pollination success responded to the occurrence of uncommon species, the proportion of semi-natural habitats had a positive influence on pollination delivery provided by wild bees. This study shows the importance of some uncommon species, dependent on semi-natural habitats, for pollination delivery but also the positive relationship ...