Data for: Annual flower strips under the ‘All of Sweden blooms’ initiative - how do they perform for pollinators, natural enemies and herbivores?

We sampled pollinators, natural enemies, and herbivores, and estimated predation rates using visual observations, yellow sticky traps, pitfall traps, tiller counts and sentinel prey cards in eight pairs of pollinator attractive annual flower strips and control field margins, and their adjacent cereal fields in Skåne, Sweden in 2021. Field margins (flower strip vs spontaneous vegetation control) were characterized by estimating the percentage of plant cover and the total floral area (for each species we calculated the number of floral units x average floral area) in eight 0.6 x 0.6 m squares evenly distributed along the 100 m transect. Data was collected twice during the main period of the flower mixture. Pollinators (hoverflies, honey bees, bumblebees, solitary bees, and butterflies) visiting flowers were surveyed for 10 minutes along a 100 m long and 1 m wide transect in each field margin type. Pollinators were surveyed twice during the main period of the flower mixture on the same days as the margin characterization was done. Leaf-dwelling natural enemies and herbivores were sampled using yellow sticky traps (20 cm x 12.6 cm). Four traps of each type were placed along the 100 m transect in the field margins and another four in the adjacent crop area, at 10 m from the margins, for a total of 16 traps per site. Traps were spaced 20 m apart within each transect and remained in the field for seven days. Data was collected twice during the main period of the flower mixture. Due to a large number of samples only three traps per transect were processed and identified. Ground-dwelling natural enemies were sampled using pitfall traps made from polypropylene beakers (12 cm diameter) filled with 200 mL of soapy water. Four traps of each type were placed along the 100 m transect in the field margins and another four in the adjacent crop area, at 10 m from the margins, for a total of 16 traps per site. Traps were spaced 20 m apart within each transect and remained in the field for seven days. Data was collected twice during the main period of the flower mixture. Due to a large number of samples only three traps per transect were processed and identified. We counted and identified all arthropods found on four groups of five tillers located along each adjacent crop transect, spaced every 20 m, resulting in 80 crop tillers per site. Data was collected twice during the main period of the flower mixture. Sentinel aphid cards were set up in the field to estimate aphid predation rates. Four groups of two cards at ground level and two cards at vegetation level were set up along each adjacent crop transect, spaced every 20 m, resulting in 32 cards per site. Sentinel prey cards were set up once, exposed simultaneously during the first sampling interval of the tiller counts. After 24 hours of exposure, the sentinel prey cards were collected, and the remaining aphids were counted. This survey was conducted only in four of the eight fields. All data were aggregated across samples and survey rounds for each field margin habitat and the adjacent on-crop area. Hushållningssällskapet provided support in identifying suitable study sites, facilitating contact with farmers, and reviewing and editing the final manuscript associated with the dataset For further information, see methods in the manuscript Rodríguez-Gasol et al. "Annual flower strips under the ‘All of Sweden blooms’ initiative - how do they perform for pollinators, natural enemies and herbivores?".