Intensive agriculture has led to a loss of overall biodiversity and ecosystem services such as pollination and biological control within large farms. To offset these losses, many farms are implementing wildflower plantings aimed to restore flowering plant diversity and augment pollinators and other beneficial arthropods. In this study, we examined overall arthropod communities within small wildflower plantings compared to fallow controls that were primarily composed of grasses.
Results/Conclusions
Significantly more herbivorous insects, predatorial arthropods, and pollinators were found within the wildflower plantings compared to fallow controls. However, while most insect families generally responded positively to the wildflower plantings, other families were found in higher abundances within the fallow controls. Pollinator surveys on flowering plants also yielded numerous plant-pollinator interactions within the wildflower plantings, supporting the conception that some native wildflowers were more attractive to pollinators than others. Nevertheless, utilizing diverse flowering plants for wildflower plantings may support many rare or declining beneficial arthropods. Our results suggest that wildflower plantings can be an inimitable way to increase overall plant and arthropod diversity within intensive agricultural areas. These wildflower plantings have the potential to not only increase arthropod diversity within farms but also help maintain populations of native pollinators and other beneficial arthropods.