Objective In recent years, with the development of human society, many ecological problems have begun to emerge, and the number of pollinators is decreasing. In the whole ecosystem, pollinators, mainly insects, play an important role in maintaining the stability of plant communities and improving the yield and quality of crops. If the number and types of pollinators decrease sharply, the agricultural economy will decline, and the stability of the ecosystem will also be affected. The diversity of urban ecosystems as well as the heterogeneity of landscapes is now improving, with diverse green spaces such as large parks supporting the survival of pollinators, so urban green spaces have a significant potential to develop as pollinator habitat. Moreover, pollinator diversity is well related to urban ecology, and the conservation of urban pollinator communities contributes to the stability of urban ecology. In order to make full use of the protective effect of urban green spaces on pollinator communities, while improving the benefits of urban ecosystems, it is very significant to clarify a systematic approach for the construction of pollinator-friendly landscapes and to point out the future development direction of the field of pollinator-friendly landscapes in Chinese cities.

Methods This research is based on VOS viewer software to visualize and analyze the effective literature in the field of pollinator-friendly landscapes filtered from Web of Science core database, Google Scholar and X-MOL academic platform. In this way, the research hopes to understand the research trends and hotspots in the field of pollinator-friendly landscapes, and at the same time, to sort out the methods for constructing urban pollinator-friendly landscapes and related cases.

Results By analyzing the change in the number of articles over the years in each country based on the valid literature, it is found that the field of pollinator-friendly landscapes was in a slow development phase until 2007, with only a little research worldwide. Beginning in 2013, the number of articles in the field and their growth rate increased significantly, peaking in 2021 with over 200 articles. Although the amount of literature starts to decrease after 2021, it is still at a high level. All along, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom have been at the forefront of research, and although China has also conducted relevant research, the amount of literature has been low. In addition, four major research clusters in the field of pollinator-friendly landscapes are obtained through keyword co-occurrence network analysis: 1) effects of habitat fragmentation on pollinator community diversity; 2) impacts of declining pollinator diversity on agricultural economy; 3) impacts of urbanization on pollinator (Hymenoptera) diversity; 4) flowering plant resources and pollinator diversity conservation. Research on the first three research clusters mainly focuses on the period up to 2020, after which scholars have begun to focus on the conservation of pollinators by flowering plant resources, further exploring specific measures for pollinator community conservation, namely how to construct pollinator-friendly landscapes in urban and agricultural landscapes. After 2020, research on urban pollinator-friendly landscape construction is receiving more and more attention from scholars, and the field is slowly developing into an important branch in the field of pollinator landscapes. In the future, urban pollinator-friendly landscape construction can be carried out in four aspects: 1) Building pollinator migration corridors; 2) prioritizing the application of plants with high attractiveness to pollinators through experiments or research; 3) creating diverse habitat conditions and diverse plant community structures; 4) carrying out differentiated ecological management.

Conclusion Although there have been a large amount of related research based on urban pollinator-friendly landscapes, there are still areas entailing deeper research in some aspects, especially in the screening of pollinator-friendly plants, which has been weakly researched both at home and abroad. Currently, China is in the stage of rapid urbanization, and the construction of urban ecosystems has received focused attention. Pollinators play an important role in stabilizing urban ecology, the development of their communities is crucial for urban ecosystems. However, at present, China’s research in the field of pollinator-friendly landscapes mainly focuses on pollinator habitat construction. In terms of pollinator migration corridor construction, although the construction of stepped habitats and the design of migration corridors have been proposed in relevant literature, a systematic approach has not been formed, and the reference significance is small. Additional research on both pollinator-friendly plant selection and ecological management is needed. For the future development direction of pollinator-friendly landscapes in Chinese cities, the following aspects can be considered to continue in-depth: 1) Strengthening the connectivity between urban green spaces; 2) focusing on the role of non-flowering plants in pollinator conservation; 3) accelerating the publicity of pollinator conservation knowledge; 4) expediting the excavation of pollinator-friendly plant resources and their popularization; and 5) improving the requirements for the use of various types of pesticides, and speeding up the research and development process of low-concentration pesticides. This research is helpful to accelerate the development of urban pollinator-friendly landscape construction, thus promoting the better development of cities as shelters for pollinator communities, while further improving the diversity of urban pollinators and the stability of urban ecology.