New Research Shows that Organic Farming benefits Insect Biodiversity, Insect-Flower Interactions and Pollination of Wild Plants

June 2011

New research just published by ecologists at Trinity College Dublin, has shown that organic farming benefits insect biodiversity, insect-flower interactions and pollination of wild plants.

The study by PhD student Eileen Power and principal investigator Dr Jane Stout of the School of Natural Sciences, TCD was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Modern farming, with its reliance on agrichemical inputs, threatens wild plants and the insects such as bees and hoverflies that visit their flowers. Some wild plants rely on their insect visitors to transfer pollen and thus act as pollinators. The insects rely on the plants as a food resource, and together they form an interconnected web of interactions that are ecologically and economically important. The value of insect pollination has been estimated to be worth at least €50 million per year to the agricultural industry in Ireland.