Protecting pollinators: What works in European protected areas?

Pollinators are important to humans and nature due to their role in ecosystem functioning and services. Research on the effects of pollinator management in protected areas is insufficient compared with that on farmlands and urban areas, potentially hindering appropriate policy implementation. To fill this gap, a new study investigated the impacts of pollinator-friendly management practices compared to conventional management in European protected areas.

This research was led by the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research in collaboration with 30 European institutes. Published in Conservation Biology, the synthesis examines whether pollinator-friendly management in protected areas has positive effects on vegetation, floral resources, and a broad range of pollinator groups. The findings show that pollinator-friendly management had mostly neutral and only a few positive effects on plants and pollinators.

The researchers compiled 34 primary datasets, covering 10 countries with 639 sampling sites within Europe. They analysed the general effects, as well as the dataset-level effect in the gathered datasets with different management types (e.g., land abandonment, mowing, grazing, flower sowing, and gap creation) and different habitat types (grasslands, forests, reed beds, and sandpits).

General results present mostly neutral and never negative effects for pollinator-friendly management, while the details are also particularly fascinating. Lead author Dr Gabriella Süle explains, “Our synthesis underscores that implementing management practices for pollinators in protected areas is more challenging than in farmlands and cities. One possible explanation is that protected areas already host higher quality habitats. Alternatively, pollinator-friendly approaches commonly implemented may be insufficient in protected areas.”

Besides the general neutral results, at the dataset level, they found a few negative effects of pollinator-friendly management. Dr Viktor Szigeti notes, “The details behind any general patterns are important because pollinator groups, habitats, and management types, as well as spatiotemporal dimensions, influence the effectiveness of management. Thus, to represent the needs of pollinators in protected areas, pollinator-friendly management plans must go beyond general patterns and be based on specific, local circumstances, emphasising the necessity of locally adapted, long-term strategies that maintain heterogeneous habitats.”

Building on the collective expertise of 46 authors in pollinator ecology, the researchers identified knowledge gaps and proposed concrete actions to make protected areas more favourable for pollinators while also considering wider socio-ecological aspects. Dr András Báldi notes, “Rather than applying uniform management, conservation should promote habitat-specific approaches that support both floral and nesting resources while considering landscape context, historical land use, and ecological processes. Our synthesis calls attention to stronger pollinator-focused conservation in protected areas through targeted management, improved policies, long-term monitoring, and coordinated research to guide restoration and management at larger spatial scales.”

Although the Nature Restoration Regulation creates new opportunities for pollinator conservation, its successful implementation will require careful planning and habitat-specific management, as protected areas demand more targeted and context-dependent measures that explicitly consider pollinator requirements than those typically applied in urban or agricultural landscapes. Protected areas are essential refuges for pollinators, and while most pollinator-friendly management actions can provide benefits, their long-term success depends on close collaboration among researchers and stakeholders (e.g., herders and national park rangers), supported by robust monitoring and adaptive feedback systems.