Improving floral resources for bees and other flower-visiting insects: key ecological & human dimensions

This thesis contributes to the current field of research exploring how to improve floral resource availability for flower-visiting insects (FVI). This objective is increasingly both important and difficult, as we experience rapid global anthropogenic change and attempt to meet the food and land requirements of a growing human population sustainably. In practice enhancing floral resources is highly complex, with multiple stakeholders and interlinked ecological and human dimensions. Chapter Two uses multiple complementary approaches to show that bramble, (Rubus fruticosus L. agg.), is a highly valuable foraging resource for bees and other FVI. Chapter Three shows that nectar competition between honeybees and bumblebees varies seasonally and is stronger in summer than spring or autumn, adding to current understanding of the seasonality of resource demand and exploitative competition between bee species. Chapter Three shows that nectar competition between honeybees and bumblebees varies seasonally and is stronger in summer than spring or autumn, adding to current understanding of the seasonality of resource demand and exploitative competition between bee species. Chapter Five discovers positive public attitudes but mixed pro-environmental behaviour relating to planting for pollinators, using questionnaires and interviews with customers in five garden centres in Sussex. Chapter Six uses an online questionnaire to show that public perceptions of common wild flowering plants are influenced by conflicting factors, including aesthetic appeal, charisma and ‘weed’ status. Perceived ecological value had a small effect on liking ratings for wildflowers at an individual, but not societal, level.