Regenerative management enhances pollinator communities in commercial perennial farms across multiple years

Agricultural intensification is one of the primary drivers of global pollinator decline, yet empirical evidence for the effectiveness of biodiversity-oriented management under real commercial farming conditions remains scarce. This study evaluates the effects of a multi-species cover crop mixture, implemented as a regenerative soil management strategy in the inter-row spaces of five commercial perennial farms across Mediterranean Spain, on pollinator abundance, species richness, family richness, alpha diversity, and community composition over three consecutive years (2020–2023). Standardized Malaise trapping yielded a total of 18,483 pollinator individuals comprising 167 species, 97 genera, and 42 families across four orders. Regenerative management consistently enhanced all pollinator metrics relative to conventional bare-soil management. Abundance increased more than threefold overall, with a 5.7-fold increase in olive systems and a 2.2-fold increase in stone fruit systems. Species richness more than doubled, family richness increased by 80%, and both Shannon and Simpson diversity were significantly higher under regenerative management. Community composition also differed significantly between management treatments, and indicator species analysis identified 29 significant indicator species, nearly 90% of which were associated with regenerative management across a broad range of pollinator groups. These responses were robust across contrasting crop types and remained ecologically meaningful throughout the study period, despite a decline in pollinator abundance during the final sampling year. The magnitude of the management effect was particularly pronounced in structurally simplified superintensive olive orchards, where baseline pollinator communities were most impoverished under conventional tillage. Collectively, these results indicate that florally diverse, multi-species cover crop mixtures can produce substantial and consistent increases in pollinator abundance, diversity and community composition under commercial farming conditions, supporting evidence-based cover cropping as a practical strategy to help mitigate the effects of agricultural intensification on pollinators.