Ecological intensification, or the improvement of crop yield through enhancement of biodiversity, may be a sustainable pathway toward greater food supplies. Such sustainable increases may be especially important for the 2 billion people reliant on small farms, many of which are undernourished, yet we know little about the efficacy of this approach. Using a coordinated protocol across regions and crops, we quantify to what degree enhancing pollinator density and richness can improve yields on 344 fields from 33 pollinator-dependent crop systems in small and large farms from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For fields less than 2 hectares, we found that yield gaps could be closed by a median of 24% through higher flower-visitor density. For larger fields, such benefits only occurred at high flower-visitor richness. Worldwide, our study demonstrates that ecological intensification can create synchronous biodiversity and yield outcomes.

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Seventy five percent of fruit production of the major global crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions. Here, we present CropPol, a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination. It contains measurements recorded from 189 crop studies, covering 3,216 field observations, 2,421 yield measurements (i.e. berry weight, number of fruits and kg per hectare, among others), and 46,262 insect records from 49 commercial crops distributed around the globe. CropPol comprises 32 of the 87 leading global crops and commodities that are pollinator dependent. Malus domestica is the most represented crop (25 studies), followed by Brassica napus (22 studies), Vaccinium corymbosum (13 studies), and Citrullus lanatus (12 studies). The most abundant pollinator guilds recorded are honey bees (33.12% counts), bumblebees (18.65%), flies other than Syrphidae and Bombyliidae (13.76%), other wild bees (13.51%), beetles (11.47%), Syrphidae (4.86%), and Bombyliidae (0.06%). Locations comprise 32 countries distributed among European (70 studies), Northern America (59), Latin America and the Caribbean (27), Asia (22), Oceania (10), and Africa (7). Sampling spans three decades and is concentrated on 2001-05 (21 studies), 2006-10 (38), 2011-15 (87), 2016-20 (40). This is the most comprehensive open global data set on measurements of crop flower visitors, crop pollinators and pollination to date and we encourage researchers to add more datasets to this database in the future. No copyright restrictions are associated with the use of this dataset. Please cite this data paper when the data are used in publications and cite individual studies when appropriate.

Floral and reproductive biology of Vaccinium meridionale (Ericaceae) in the Eastern Andes of Colombia. Vaccinium meridionale is a wild plant producing edible fruits in the mountain areas of Northern South America. However, the fruits of this species has been under an unsustainable extraction and there is a growing interest of establishing this species as a crop; nevertheless, the information about its breeding system is scarce, which is essential for its sustainable management and conservation. This research aimed to study the floral and reproductive biology of V. meridionale in natural conditions, and to analyze the importance of pollinators on its reproduction, in two wild populations of V. meridionale in the states of Cundinamarca and Boyacá, in the Oriental Cordillera of Colombia. For this, we have made different observations and experiments to describe its flower morphology, floral phenology, pollen viability, stigma receptivity, pollen-ovule ratio and nectar production. To study its reproductive system, we performed experiments of flower emasculation, pollinator exclusion and hand pollination (self-and cross-pollination). We found that although the flowers have poricidal anthers, the release of pollen could occur easily without vibration. V. meridionale shows a large floral display, long floral longevity and has female-biased nectar production. The pollen-ovule ratio was of 571±133, which classified the species as facultative xenogamy. This result agreed with the pollination experiments because the plants produced fruits by agamospermy, selfing and outcrossing. However, we registered a strong inbreeding depression, observed in high rates of fruit abortions, after self-pollination. Unlike of self-pollinating fruits, the plant retains those produced by cross-pollination since its formation. The floral traits showed by this species are mechanisms to favor a more diverse guild of floral visitors than only insects able to buzz-pollination. In addition, these floral traits may enhance the pollination probability, and reduce geitonogamy. Moreover, the inbreeding depression suggests that V. meridionale promotes outcrossing as its main reproductive strategy. Therefore, pollinators, particularly bees, are essential for this species reproduction and conservation, and are critical in the maintenance of its genetic variability and fruits production. Rev. Biol. Trop. 63 (4): 1197-1212. Epub 2015 December 01.