The FLORAG project

Functional maps based upon floral resources at local and landscape scale: which effect on pollinating insect communities ? FLORAG

2020 Coordinator : UMR BAGAP BAGAP contact : Audrey Alignier BAGAPresearch areas: Landscape modeling and analysis, Biodiversity conservation in rural and urban areas Keywords : pollinators, landscape, floral resources, traits

Research

Faced with the drastic decline of pollinating insects and the ecosystem service of pollination, understanding the importance of local and landscape factors on the richness and abundance of these insects is essential. The existing literature shows that at the local scale (i.e. field scale, field border scale), the loss of floral resources is one of the main factors of the decline of pollinators in agricultural landscapes. At the landscape scale, the heterogeneity of the landscape, linked to the composition and configuration of cultivated and uncultivated habitats, also strongly influences pollinator communities.

However, this heterogeneity is often described in a very structural manner. A more functional approach to the landscape taking into account the availability, accessibility, quantity and quality of floral resources could provide new knowledge about the needs of different groups of pollinators, and therefore find levers in agricultural systems to stem their decline. In continuation of the DIVAG project (funded by the ZA in 2019), the FLORAG project proposes to produce “functional” maps of the landscape in order to assess the effects of floral resources (availability, accessibility, quantity and quality) at local and landscape scales on the insect communities involved in the pollination service in agricultural landscapes of Brittany.

The work will be carried out by mobilizing the entomological and floristic data acquired on the south of the Zone Atelier Armorique by the UMR BAGAP and ECOBIO.

BAGAP Staff Involved

• Audrey Alignier: écologie
• Stéphanie Aviron: écologie

Partners

• CNRS – Université de Rennes 1 UMR ECOBIO

Funding

• Zone Atelier Armorique, UMR BAGAP