Action

Manage the agricultural landscape to enhance floral resources

How is the evidence assessed?
  • Effectiveness
    40%
  • Certainty
    10%
  • Harms
    not assessed

Study locations

Key messages

  • One large replicated controlled trial showed that the average abundance of long-tongued bumblebees on field margins was positively correlated with the number of ‘pollen and nectar’ agri-environment agreements in a 10 km grid square.

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

  1. A replicated controlled trial in 2004 in thirty-two 10 km grid squares across England (Pywell et al. 2006) found the abundance of long-tongued bumblebees Bombus spp., mostly common carder bee B. pascuorum and garden bumblebee B. hortorum, recorded on trial field margins (various planting treatments, including sown grass and wildflower margins) was positively correlated with the total number of pollen and nectar mix agri-environment agreements in each 10 km square. There is no record of the numbers of long-tongued bumblebees in these grid squares before the agreements were implemented. Bumblebees were counted on a 100 x 6 m transect in each of 151 field margins, once in July and once in August.

    Study and other actions tested
Please cite as:

Dicks, L.V., Ashpole, J.E., Dänhardt, J., James, K., Jönsson, A., Randall, N., Showler, D.A., Smith, R.K., Turpie, S., Williams, D.R. & Sutherland, W.J. (2020) Farmland Conservation. Pages 283-321 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

 

Where has this evidence come from?

List of journals searched by synopsis

All the journals searched for all synopses

Farmland Conservation

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Farmland Conservation
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What Works in Conservation provides expert assessments of the effectiveness of actions, based on summarised evidence, in synopses. Subjects covered so far include amphibians, birds, mammals, forests, peatland and control of freshwater invasive species. More are in progress.

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