Abstract
The study aimed to examine the relationship between pollination service (as an ecosystem service) and the landscape structure of Aya Town, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. Our target agricultural crop for the evaluation of pollination service was hyuganatsu (Citrus tamurana), and native (Apis cerana) and managed honey bees (Apis mellifera) were considered the key species of ecosystem service provider. We selected 15 hyuganatsu trees in 5 orchards and counted the number of honey bee visits. We tested local and macro scale landscape indices as explanatory variables to clarify the number of honey bee visits. A model that used the number of flowers, area of adjacent natural forests, and area of agricultural fields within a 1-km radius was selected as the best model. Our results suggest that landscape structure affected the number of honey bee visits to a hyuganatsu tree, which represents the quantity of ecosystem service for the tree, and should be considered in the evaluation of ecosystem services.
