TY - JOUR
T1 - Honey bee (Apis mellifera) hive placement is more influential than orchard layout on the fruit set of a dioecious crop
AU - Li, Jing
AU - Broussard, Melissa
AU - Tomer, Nathan
AU - Jochym, Mateusz
AU - Fonseka, Dilini
AU - Peace, Angela
AU - Jesson, Linley
AU - Bosque-Pérez, Nilsa A.
AU - Crowder, David
AU - Howlett, Brad G.
AU - Pattemore, David
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/10
Y1 - 2022/10
N2 - Managers of insect-pollinated orchards face many decisions that can significantly influence crop yields, including managing pollination through use of beehives or the layout of cultivars in the orchard. Understanding the relative importance and interactions between these multiple decisions through empirical field trials is rarely possible, so modeling approaches can provide valuable insights and generate new hypotheses. Based on kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa (A. Chev.) A. Chev. ‘Hayward’), a dioecious fruiting vine, as an exemplar, we used a spatially-explicit system of differential equations on a lattice to explore the effects of overlap of male and female flowers, hive placements within the orchard, and orchard layout on the predicted pollination success. In our model, hive placement and orchard layout influenced the proportion of fruit set in an orchard more strongly than male and female flowering synchrony. Simulations with hives distributed evenly around the orchard had the most fruit set, while hives located at a single point resulted in relatively low fruit set. Our model showed that the effect of hive distribution was more important for fruit production than planting regime. We have demonstrated how such a model can be used to provide key information for orchardists to optimize their yields. Our model predicts that while orchard planting decisions are important, the consideration of hive placement during flowering is likely to have greater influence on final orchard productivity in functionally dioecious crops.
AB - Managers of insect-pollinated orchards face many decisions that can significantly influence crop yields, including managing pollination through use of beehives or the layout of cultivars in the orchard. Understanding the relative importance and interactions between these multiple decisions through empirical field trials is rarely possible, so modeling approaches can provide valuable insights and generate new hypotheses. Based on kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa (A. Chev.) A. Chev. ‘Hayward’), a dioecious fruiting vine, as an exemplar, we used a spatially-explicit system of differential equations on a lattice to explore the effects of overlap of male and female flowers, hive placements within the orchard, and orchard layout on the predicted pollination success. In our model, hive placement and orchard layout influenced the proportion of fruit set in an orchard more strongly than male and female flowering synchrony. Simulations with hives distributed evenly around the orchard had the most fruit set, while hives located at a single point resulted in relatively low fruit set. Our model showed that the effect of hive distribution was more important for fruit production than planting regime. We have demonstrated how such a model can be used to provide key information for orchardists to optimize their yields. Our model predicts that while orchard planting decisions are important, the consideration of hive placement during flowering is likely to have greater influence on final orchard productivity in functionally dioecious crops.
KW - Delay differential equation
KW - Dioecious crop
KW - Honey bee
KW - Mathematical modeling
KW - Pollination
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85135143477&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2022.110074
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2022.110074
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85135143477
SN - 0304-3800
VL - 472
JO - Ecological Modelling
JF - Ecological Modelling
M1 - 110074
ER -