Linde Wildflower Experiment

The Linde Wildflower Experiment is a close collaboration between two research groups: Our group focuses on the plant communities within wildflower strips and the food resources they provide for insects in general, and for pollinators in particular. The Animal Ecology Group at the University of Potsdam investigates the response of ground-dwelling and pollinator insects to these vegetation structures.

While wildflower strips are typically sown with a diverse mix of arable plant species, additional diversity often emerges from the soil seed bank, contributing longer-lived species and adding to the structural and temporal complexity of the vegetation. For pollinators, the timing of flowering is key: if all plants flower at once, as is common shortly after sowing, this can lead to seasonal gaps in nectar and pollen availability. Sustained flowering throughout the season is essential to support flying insects over time.

In this experiment which is situated at the Linde Research Station in the Western Havel Area (Brandenburg, Germany), we also aim to disentangle the effects of wildflower strip age and shape. Specifically, we compare conventional, static strips – typically long and narrow, with extended boundaries to both the field margin and the crop area –with the rolling wildflower blocks, which have a shorter boundary and shift across the field over time. This allows us to investigate not only how vegetation changes with time (succession), but also how different spatial layouts influence biodiversity, particularly through edge and margin effects.

Mission

The Linde Wildflower Experiment aims to understand how the age and spatial design of wildflower strips influence plant communities and the insect biodiversity they support in agricultural landscapes.

Project details