How does wildflower planting size affect insect pollinators and their delivery of pollination ecosystem services?

Insect pollinators, particularly wild and managed bees, provide an ecosystem service that is exploited extensively by farmers all over the world for the pollination of a large array of crops. However, the lack of floral diversity and nesting sites makes many agricultural landscapes poor habitat for non-managed insect pollinators. Adding native wildflowers to agricultural landscapes can provide floral resources and nesting habitats to support these pollinators throughout the growing season, potentially maintaining the pollination services from non-managed bees. In this project, we measured the response of insect pollinators to wildflower planting size by establishing twelve native Michigan flowering perennial plants in replicated plots ranging in size from 1 to 100m2. These plots were sampled for insect pollinators through the 2010-2011 growing seasons. To determine whether pollination services delivered to the plots varied with patch size, we compared seed production in open and bagged sentinel flowers in each of the different sized plots. The relationships between wildflower plot size, the abundance and diversity of insect pollinators and the services they provide will be discussed.