Non-bee strawberry flower visiting community
Pollinator diversity is critical for optimal ecosystem service and function. While wild bees are frequently the most efficient pollinators, they represent only a small fraction of pollinator diversity. Non-bee pollinators have received little recognition for their role in commercial agricultural pollination despite making up a large portion of the diversity of arthropod flower visitors. Many non-bee pollinators are resilient to land-use intensification and climate change due to their nomadic life-history and tolerance of inclement weather. Our research characterizes non-bee pollinator communities, their foraging preferences, and floral fidelity in strawberry crops. We caught 604 non-bee flower visitors, across three field sites, during three months of the flowering period (May to August) of day-neutral strawberries in southern Ontario. DNA metabarcoding provided species-level identifications of the non-bee flower visiting community. Diptera and Hymenoptera were the most abundant flower visitors; Coleoptera and Hemiptera were also collected from flowers. Metabarcoding of pollen identified pollen from 110 genera representing 48 different families. Species with a high floral fidelity (flower constancy) for visiting strawberries were likely to be more effective pollinators (vectors of conspecific pollen between reproductively receptive strawberry plants). Additionally, small amounts of pollen from other plant genera suggested that insects are active and mobile, rather than staying stationary on a single flower.