Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops

Abstract

The extent of our reliance on animal pollination for world crop production for human food has not previously been evaluated and the previous estimates for countries or continents have seldom used primary data. In this review, we expand the previous estimates using novel primary data from 200 countries and found that fruit, vegetable or seed production from 87 of the leading global food crops is dependent upon animal pollination, while 28 crops do not rely upon animal pollination. However, global production volumes give a contrasting perspective, since 60% of global production comes from crops that do not depend on animal pollination, 35% from crops that depend on pollinators, and 5% are unevaluated. Using all crops traded on the world market and setting aside crops that are solely passively self-pollinated, windpollinated or parthenocarpic, we then evaluated the level of dependence on animal-mediated pollination for crops that are directly consumed by humans. We found that pollinators are essential for 13 crops, production is highly pollinator dependent for 30, moderately for 27, slightly for 21, unimportant for 7, and is of unknown significance for the remaining 9. We further evaluated whether local and landscape-wide management for natural pollination services could help to sustain crop diversity and production. Case studies for nine crops on four continents revealed that agricultural intensification jeopardizes wild bee communities and their stabilizing effect on pollination services at the landscape scale.

Impact of human disturbance on bee pollinator communities in savanna and agricultural sites in Burkina Faso, West Africa

“…Pollinators are one such group: Most of the world's flowering plants require animal pollinators (Ashman et al., 2004), and plant populations in human‐dominated ecosystems will only maintain genetic diversity if pollinators are present and can move freely through anthropogenic habitats (Keller & Waller, 2002). Bees are key providers of pollination services, which are vital for crop production and food security and the persistence of many wild plants (Klein et al., 2007; Ollerton, Winfree, & Tarrant, 2011). However, many bee species are threatened by land‐use intensification and human disturbance of natural habitats (Ollerton, Erenler, Edwards, & Crockett, 2014; Potts et al., 2010).…”

“…The fact that almost half the studies on pollinator decline comes from only five countries (Australia, Brazil, Germany, Spain and USA), with only 4% of the data from the African continent (Archer et al., 2014; Winfree, Bartomeus, & Cariveau, 2011), highlights the bias in information and the lack of data from some regions. Although movements of pollinators from natural to managed agricultural landscapes have been documented across a wide range of both tropical and temperate habitats and managed landscapes (Garibaldi et al., 2011; Klein et al., 2007), most of the studies were carried out in Europe and North America. Examples from tropical regions are less available and include rainforest habitats providing resources for pollinating bees for coffee agroecosystems in Indonesia (Klein, Steffan‐Dewenter, & Tscharntke, 2003a), Costa Rica (Ricketts, 2004), Brazil (De Marco & Coelho, 2004), and Tanzania (Classen et al., 2014).…”

Endosymbionts and honey bee colony losses?

“…Honey bees, Apis mellifera, are essential pollinators for the maintenance of natural biodiversity and agriculture [1]. Colony losses witnessed throughout the Northern hemisphere are therefore worrying [2], especially because no single driver has yet emerged as the definitive cause [3].…”

Agricultural Utilization and Year-Round Rearing Techniques of Bumblebees in Korea

“…Insect pollination is both an ecosystem service and a production practice used extensively by farmers all over the world for crop production. We rely on bees to pollinate 87 (or 70%) of the 124 most valuable crops used directly for human consumption (Klein et al, 2007). In Europe, the production of 84% of crop species depends directly on insect pollinators, especially bees (Williams, 1994).…”