The addition of floral resources is a common intervention to support the adult life stages of key crop pollinators. Fly (Diptera) crop pollinators, however, typically do not require floral resources in their immature life stages and are likely not supported by this management intervention. Here, we deployed portable pools filled with habitat (decaying plant materials, soil, water) in seed carrot agroecosystems with the intention of providing reproduction sites for beneficial syrphid (tribe Eristalini) fly pollinators. Within 12 to 21 days after the pools were deployed, we found that the habitat pools supported the oviposition and larval development of two species of eristaline syrphid flies, Eristalis tenax (Linnaeus, 1758) and Eristalinus punctulatus (Macquart, 1847). Each habitat pool contained an average (±S.E.) of 547 ± 117 eristaline fly eggs and 50 ± 17 eristaline fly larvae. Additionally, we found significantly more eggs were laid on decaying plant stems and carrot roots compared to other locations within the pool habitat (e.g., on decaying carrot umbels, leaves, etc.). These results suggest that deploying habitat pools in agroecosystems can be a successful management intervention that rapidly facilitates fly pollinator reproduction. This method can be used to support future studies to determine if the addition of habitat resources on intensively cultivated farms increases flower visitation and crop pollination success by flies.

Almonds are one of the most economically valuable crops globally and require pollination by insects to optimise the production of high quality, marketable nuts. The Western honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) is an efficient pollinator of almond, and hives are often placed in almond orchards to provide pollination services.

While several studies have investigated pollen collection by honey bees, little is known about the usage of almond and other pollen sources by individual hives during almond bloom.

We observed the brown honeyeater, Lichmera indistincta, visiting blueberry orchards in eastern Australia. L. indistincta is considered to be a nectarivorous bird, feeding almost entirely on nectar. However, we report observations of this species as both a nectarivore and insectivore in blue-berry crops and as an insectivore in raspberry crops. Brown honeyeaters may be acting as biological control agents when feeding on leaf-roller caterpillars (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) in blueberry orchards and on brown blow-flies (Calliphora stygia) in raspberry orchards. Although most blueberry growing regions use managed honey bees as the main pollinator, more studies on the complex tritrophic interactions occurring in these crops are needed to better understand the costs and benefits of different farm management practices upon alternative pollinators.

Plant-pollinator interactions play a pivotal role in the structure and persistence of biological communities. Despite this, plant-pollinator relationships are rarely considered in applied conservation, potentially resulting in counterproductive or ineffective management practices. By allowing interactions between plants and pollinators to be quantitatively assessed, network analyses may offer valuable information for applied conservation. To demonstrate the potential utility of network analyses in conservation, this study will attempt to inform management for an endangered ecological community in eastern Australia using a multi-year pollination network. Over six seasons, 1,633.4 hours of floral visitation data were collected for 103 plant species to construct a network of plant-pollinator interactions. Asymptotic richness estimates were used to evaluate sampling efficacy, and predict the amount of effort required to complete sampling. Network analyses were conducted using the Bipartite package for RStudio, allowing species of high conservation value to be identified in terms of interaction strength, and the pollinator service index (PSI). Network specialisation (H₂’), nestedness (wNODF), robustness, and modularity were assessed as potential indicators of community stability. Sampling was estimated to detect up to 90.05% of floral visitors, and 66.66% of interactions, with floral species predicted to require an average of 18.03 hours observation to sample a majority of interactions. This was also found to coincide with stable asymptotic richness estimates for a separate sample of species subject to relatively intensive sampling efforts and is therefore recommended as a baseline for future testing and sampling. Exotic honeybees (Apis mellifera) were identified as an important pollinator within the network, which was generally more specialised, modular, and robust to floral extinctions than could be explained by null models. Dividing the network into temporal sub-networks revealed late winter and early summer flowering plants were significantly less robust to pollinator extinction in spite of high interaction nestedness. This level of risk is likely to increase significantly if honeybees become locally extinct due to the parasite Varroa destructor. Therefore, conservation efforts should focus on late winter pollinators as a means of preserving the floral community.