2026-10-14T15:42:29Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/30500390 2026-09-23T11:24:32Z category_24238 item_type_3 month_year_09_2026

Data and R code from:Honey bee hives and oilseed rape crops in combination mitigated the negative impacts of honey bee spillover on plant reproduction in alpine meadows Erliang Gao (13180272) yizhi Qiu (20381502) Xiaoping Yan (4108696) Hui Ma (13187931) Yuxian Wang (20977442) Cheng Bi (649542) Ting Yang (17632506) Øystein Opedal (9271559) Christopher Kaiser-Bunbury (21063383) Zhigang Zhao (13187946) Ecology not elsewhere classified alpine meadow exploitative competition managed honeybee oilseed rape pollination network plant reproduction <p dir="ltr">1. The global expansion of agriculture, particularly the cultivation of mass-flowering crops and the introduction of industrial-scale beekeeping, threatens biodiversity by disrupting plant-pollinator interactions in natural communities. A deeper understanding of their individual and combined impacts and the spatial aspect of these impacts is urgently needed to mitigate their impacts on natural communities. </p><p dir="ltr">2. Here, we investigated whether and how introducing managed honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) and oilseed rape (Brassica rapa var. oleifera), individually and in combination, impacts natural plant-pollinator communities in Tibetan alpine meadows during crop flowering. Specifically, we studied 18 pairs of meadow sites subjected to two sets of treatments: First, agricultural introduction treatment with three levels (i.e. hives, oilseed rape crop, or both combined were introduced in the area), and second, the distance of focal meadows to hives and/or crop edges (near plot < 50m; and far plot ~700m). </p><p dir="ltr">3. Independent of introduction treatment, honey bees visited plants more frequently (2.52 times) in near plots than in far plots, indicating proximity to hives and/or crop edges resulted in honey bee spillover into adjacent meadows. The spillover of honey bees had negative impacts on the reproduction of wild plants, such that in meadows with hives or crops only, proximity to either hives or crop edges resulted in a general decrease in seed set of wild plants. However, in meadows with both hives and crops, the seed set was similar between near and far plots, indicating that oilseed crops and hives in combination mitigated the negative impacts of honey bee spillover. Further analysis suggested that this mitigation was associated with a higher complementary specialization of wild pollinators in crop+hive meadows. </p><p dir="ltr">4. Synthesis and applications. During bloom, mass-flowering crops can mitigate the otherwise negative impacts of hive introductions on plant reproduction by improving niche partitioning among wild pollinators. This study improves our understanding of the context-dependent responses of natural plant-pollinator communities to the introduction of hives in agricultural landscapes, and provides a framework for optimized agricultural planning in high-altitude ecosystems that balance food production with biodiversity conservation.</p> 2026-09-23T11:24:32Z Dataset Dataset 10.6084/m9.figshare.30500390.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Data_and_R_code_from_Honey_bee_hives_and_oilseed_rape_crops_in_combination_mitigated_the_negative_impacts_of_honey_bee_spillover_on_plant_reproduction_in_alpine_meadows/30500390 CC BY 4.0