Honeybees are the most effective pollinator of mango, but only wild pollinators increase the production of commercial fruits

Résumé fourni par la source

Even when several crops depend on animals for their pollination, the effectiveness of each floral visitor remains largely unknown. Across five metrics and over two consecutive years, we compare for the first time the effectiveness of all the floral visitors of a self-incompatible mango cultivar (‘Ataulfo’) and evaluate whether the abundance of the exotic honeybee or wild pollinators influences the production of commercial (well-developed) and malformed fruits (known as nubbins). Even when honeybees were the most effective pollinators in both years due to their greater abundance, only the increase in wild pollinator abundance was positively related to the production of commercial fruits and negatively correlated with the incidence of nubbins, probably due to their greater mobility between trees. These findings highlight the importance of wild pollinators in the mango industry and the need to implement conservation practices to maintain these pollinators to ensure the growing global demand for this cultivar.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.