SPATIO-TEMPORAL DELIVERY OF FLORAL RESOURCES IN HIGHLY FRAGMENTED FARMLANDS

Abstract

Availability of floral resources in farmland has been reported to impact on the presence of diverse pollinators. This is particularly so in tropical fragmented landscapes that have diverse farming activities that are practiced in Kenya. The objective of the study was to determine floral resource deliveries in a highly fragmented landscape across a forest-farm matrix traversing a distance of about 25 km from Mt. Kenya forest edge. This was an ecological study comprised of four sites running from the forest edge towards the farmlands. In each site five farm-plots with a minimum distance of 200m were selected for data collection purposes. A section of the hedge (100 m²) and cropped area (1000m2) was used for data collection purposes. Data collected included name of the plant species, whether flowered or not, type of floral resource produced and the number of bees visiting the flowers. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was carried out using GENSTAT (Ver. 17) statistical software to compare means of various parameters. Significance was sought at 95% level of confidence limit. Results showed that about 58% of the 142 recorded plant species provided pollen, 33% provided both pollen and nectar and 19% provided nectar. Plants in the Family Asteraceae were the most dominant with over 27% plant species. About 10 plant species were observed flowering all year-round while about 80% of all the plants recorded flowered for more than half a year. Higher bee activity density coincided with intense flowering period. Availability of flowered plants throughout the year assures presence of bees in the farmlands hence increased pollination for plants. Since most farmers do not manage pollination or hire bees for pollination, they must depend on feral bees stressing the importance of flowered plants in the farmlands. It is important for farmers to increase plant diversity and floral density in farmlands to ensure bees are retained for crop pollination.