Investigating the relationship between Australian almond
pollinators and their foraging landscape
POLLINATION SERVICES IN
AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES
BACKGROUND

Australia—fastest growing almond industry in
world

Almonds rely 100% on bee pollination

Nearly 164,000 honeybee hives per year for
Australian almonds
RESEARCH NEEDS
Potential native almond pollinators
 Annual crops…Tree crops
 Tropical systems…Temperate systems
 Natural enemies…pollinators
 Temporary species ‘invasion’

AIMS
Potential native pollinators of almonds
 Macro- vs micro-agriculture
 Homeless honeybees
 Agricultural landscape structure and pollinator
relationship

RESULTS SO FAR…

More flowering ground cover = more insects

Small farms/edges of large farms = more
insects
RESULTS…
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Bio-dynamic
Conventional
1
2
3
4
5
Sample site
6
7
8
Diversity of plant species within
almond orchard ground cover
No. of ground cover species
% ground cover
% Ground Cover within almond
orchards
6
5
4
3
Bio-dynamic
2
Conventional
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
Sample site
6
7
8
RESULTS…
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
% Ground cover
Ground cover richness and diversity in
bio-dynamic almond orchards
No. of ground cover species
No. of ground cover species
Ground cover richness and diversity in
conventional almond orchards
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
76
78
80
82
84
% Ground cover
86
88
90
WHAT NEXT?
More sampling
 Local honeybee populations
 Small-scale ‘mosaic’ farms vs large-scale
monocultures
 Management practice or farm size?
