The Value of Crop Production and Pollination Services in the Eastern Amazon

A study was conducted from 2010 to 2012 around the flower growing areas in central Uganda to generate baseline information on the status of pollinators. Primary data were gathered using a questionnaire that aimed at determining farmers and flower farm officials’ perceptions on the impact of activities carried out inside greenhouses on pollinators, human health, and on crop production in the surroundings. Results indicated that the quantity of pesticides and fertilizers applied daily varied among the different flower farms visited. Bee species richness and abundance varied significantly (P<0.01) according to flower farm location, to the landscape vegetation type, and to field types found in the surrounding of flower farms. Bee richness found around flower farms varied in number from 20 to 40 species in total across seasons and years. Bee density increased significantly with the increase in flower density. Small-scale farmers were aware of the value and importance of pollination services in their farming business. There was no clear evidence of a direct effect of agrochemicals application on bee communities living in the surrounding habitats. There is a need for further research to be conducted on human health risks and for toxicological studies on soils, plants, flowers, and bees in the farm landscape.

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Learning of a mimic odor combined with nectar nonsugar compounds enhances honeybee pollination of a commercial crop

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-03305-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

M. Cecilia Estravis-Barcala ◽

Florencia Palottini ◽

Walter M. Farina

Keyword(s):

Crop Production ◽

Floral Scent ◽

Seed Mass ◽

Hybrid Seed Production ◽

Memory Retention ◽

Foraging Activity ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Floral Odor ◽

Commercial Crop ◽

Increasing Demand

AbstractThe increasing demand on pollination services leads food industry to consider new strategies for management of pollinators to improve their efficiency in agroecosystems. Recently, it was demonstrated that feeding beehives food scented with an odorant mixture mimicking the floral scent of a crop (sunflower mimic, SM) enhanced foraging activity and improved recruitment to the target inflorescences, which led to higher density of bees on the crop and significantly increased yields. Besides, the oral administration of nonsugar compounds (NSC) naturally found in nectars (caffeine and arginine) improved short and long-term olfactory memory retention in conditioned bees under laboratory conditions. To test the effect of offering of SM-scented food supplemented with NSC on honeybees pollinating sunflower for hybrid seed production, in a commercial plantation we fed colonies SM-scented food (control), and SM-scented food supplemented with either caffeine, arginine, or a mixture of both, in field realistic concentrations. Their foraging activity was assessed at the hive and on the crop up to 90 h after treatment, and sunflower yield was estimated prior to harvest. Our field results show that SM + Mix-treated colonies exhibited the highest incoming rates and densities on the crop. Additionally, overall seed mass was significantly higher by 20% on inflorescences close to these colonies than control colonies. Such results suggest that combined NSC potentiate olfactory learning of a mimic floral odor inside the hive, promoting faster colony-level foraging responses and increasing crop production.

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Delivery of crop pollination services is an insufficient argument for wild pollinator conservation

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/ncomms8414 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 358

Author(s):

David Kleijn ◽

Rachael Winfree ◽

Ignasi Bartomeus ◽

Luísa G Carvalheiro ◽

Mickaël Henry ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Crop Production ◽

Biological Diversity ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Common Species ◽

Crop Pollination ◽

Wild Bees ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Bee Communities

Abstract There is compelling evidence that more diverse ecosystems deliver greater benefits to people, and these ecosystem services have become a key argument for biodiversity conservation. However, it is unclear how much biodiversity is needed to deliver ecosystem services in a cost-effective way. Here we show that, while the contribution of wild bees to crop production is significant, service delivery is restricted to a limited subset of all known bee species. Across crops, years and biogeographical regions, crop-visiting wild bee communities are dominated by a small number of common species, and threatened species are rarely observed on crops. Dominant crop pollinators persist under agricultural expansion and many are easily enhanced by simple conservation measures, suggesting that cost-effective management strategies to promote crop pollination should target a different set of species than management strategies to promote threatened bees. Conserving the biological diversity of bees therefore requires more than just ecosystem-service-based arguments.

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Insect pollination and sustainable agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa

Journal of Pollination Ecology ◽

10.26786/1920-7603(2021)615 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 27 ◽

Author(s):

Kumsa Tolera ◽

Gavin Ballantyne

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Agriculture ◽

Crop Production ◽

Abiotic Factors ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Population Declines ◽

Insect Pollination ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Agricultural Improvement ◽

Global Perspectives ◽

Sub Saharan

We are currently seeing an expansion of pollinator-dependent crops in many parts of the world, but also growing evidence for pollinator population declines and loss of pollinator habitat. Climate change and population growth will place additional demands on crop production, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Despite the wealth of evidence that improved management of insect pollinators can lead to substantial gains in crop yield, agricultural improvement strategies in SSA still emphasize the manipulation of abiotic factors and do not fully exploit the value of pollinators. In this article we review the importance of pollination services in sustainable agriculture, how global perspectives can inform our understanding of the situation in SSA, discuss successful pollination management, highlight where research and development are required, and suggest possible solutions to enhance the contribution of pollination services to sustainable agriculture in the region.

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Economic Value of Pollination Service of Agricultural Crops in Ethiopia: Biological Pollinators

Journal of Apicultural Science ◽

10.2478/jas-2018-0024 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 62 (2) ◽

pp. 265-273 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Getachew Worku Alebachew

Keyword(s):

Crop Production ◽

Economic Value ◽

No Production ◽

Agricultural Crops ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Pollinator Decline ◽

Economic Production ◽

Value Loss ◽

Minor Crop ◽

Production Value

Abstract The most important ecosystem service for sustainable crop production is pollination, the mutualistic interaction between plants and animals. Honeybees are being indispensable role in this process. The total economic value of crop pollination worldwide has been estimated at €153 billion annually. Animal pollination of agricultural crops is provided by both managed and wild pollinators. The aim of this study was to determine the economic value of pollination services and vulnerability of Ethiopian agriculture in the face of pollinator decline. An improved approach to determine the economic value of pollination (EVP) services is applied to multiply a crop’s total value by a coefficient between zero and one representing the crop’s dependency on pollination services for production. The potential production value loss due to lack of pollinators is also computed as the ratio of EVP to economic production value. Then EVP was $ 815.2 million dollars and vulnerability of Ethiopian agriculture due to lack of pollinators 16% in the 2015/16 crop production season. The regional state of Oromia benefited the most followed by the regional states of Amhara and South Nation Nationality People (SNPP). Coffee, the leading crop, has the highest EVP in the country followed by Faba beans and Nug (Guizotia abyssinica). Ethiopia has highly benefited from biological pollinators, so protecting them has significant role in the country’s economy. Most crops in Ethiopia have no pollination dependency ratio and some minor crop has no production data, incorporating them possible to better estimation of EVP service for the future.

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Pollen Paternity Can Affect Kernel Size and Nutritional Composition of Self-Incompatible and New Self-Compatible Almond Cultivars

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy11020326 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 326

Author(s):

Wiebke Kämper ◽

Grant Thorp ◽

Michelle Wirthensohn ◽

Peter Brooks ◽

Stephen J. Trueman

Keyword(s):

Crop Production ◽

Nutritional Composition ◽

Open Pollination ◽

Kernel Size ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Crop Quality ◽

Pests And Diseases ◽

Cross Pollination ◽

Self Pollination ◽

Self Compatibility

Breeding programs for horticultural tree crops focus on enhancing productivity, including developing tolerance to pests and diseases and improving crop quality. Pollination services are often critical for crop production, and pollen parents can affect crop quality. We often do not know which pollen parents produce highest quality offspring or, in self-compatible cultivars, how much of the crop comes from cross- versus self-pollination. We quantified the proportions of self- and cross-paternity in an open pollination setting of five standard commercial almond cultivars and of six new almond cultivars selected for yield, kernel size, taste or self-compatibility. We assessed how pollination by different parents affected kernel size and nutritional quality. Kernels from most commercial cultivars and from the new cultivars selected for taste and size resulted almost entirely from cross-pollination. Most kernels from the commercial cultivar ‘Price’ resulted from cross-pollination but 21% resulted from self-pollination. In contrast, 48–91% of kernels from the new self-compatible cultivars resulted from self-pollination. Different cross-pollen parents did not greatly affect kernel size or quality. The proportions of self-paternity in the new self-compatible cultivars varied strongly in an open pollination setting suggesting that some cultivars may be good candidates for establishing monovarietal orchards.

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Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2006.3721 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 274 (1608) ◽

pp. 303-313 ◽

Cited By ~ 2429

Author(s):

Alexandra-Maria Klein ◽

Bernard E Vaissière ◽

James H Cane ◽

Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter ◽

Saul A Cunningham ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Crop Production ◽

Agricultural Intensification ◽

World Market ◽

Primary Data ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Wild Bee ◽

Unknown Significance ◽

Bee Communities ◽

Animal Pollination ◽

Global Food

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, wind-pollinated 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.

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Global Decline of Insects: A Review from Agricultural Perspective

Agricultural Reviews ◽

10.18805/ag.rf-223 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

M.K. Mazed ◽

M. Afroz ◽

M.M. Rahman

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Direct Effect ◽

Crop Production ◽

Insect Pests ◽

Agricultural Practices ◽

Natural Habitats ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Human Welfare ◽

Insect Decline ◽

Diverse Groups

The diversity and abundance of insect is facing serious challenges globally in the current era. Although the loss of biodiversity other than invertebrates has been a burning issue from a long ago, some recent reports on insect decline and its impact on agriculture have given it a crucial dimension. Studies related to insect decline revealed that 40% of insect taxa are going through the risk of decline. The current situation is the resultant of several human-influenced factors, most prominently the intensification of agriculture. Insect is one of the most diverse groups having immense effects on ecosystem as an integral part of food web which ultimately has direct effect on other organisms of environment. The most conspicuous contribution of insect is its pollination services to 80% of the flowering plants worldwide which have direct effect on human food security. Decline of pollinator insects and natural enemies of insect pests can impair the crop production due to insufficient pollination and underutilization of the insect control potential of predator insects. To resist the vulnerability of nature and to ensure food security, insect decline should be cut down by controlling anthropogenic stressors through the conservation of natural habitats, eliminating deleterious agricultural practices, implementing insect friendly policies, etc. Immediate action is necessary to alter the nature exploiting agricultural practices causing insect decline to ensure the normal functioning and integrity of entire ecosystem and for human welfare.

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Agriculturally dominated landscapes reduce bee phylogenetic diversity and pollination services

Science ◽

10.1126/science.aat6016 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 363 (6424) ◽

pp. 282-284 ◽

Cited By ~ 42

Author(s):

Heather Grab ◽

Michael G. Branstetter ◽

Nolan Amon ◽

Katherine R. Urban-Mead ◽

Mia G. Park ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Crop Production ◽

Phylogenetic Diversity ◽

Agricultural Landscapes ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Phylogenetic Structure ◽

Full Diversity ◽

Yield And Quality ◽

Diversity Of Life

Land-use change threatens global biodiversity and may reshape the tree of life by favoring some lineages over others. Whether phylogenetic diversity loss compromises ecosystem service delivery remains unknown. We address this knowledge gap using extensive genomic, community, and crop datasets to examine relationships among land use, pollinator phylogenetic structure, and crop production. Pollinator communities in highly agricultural landscapes contain 230 million fewer years of evolutionary history; this loss was strongly associated with reduced crop yield and quality. Our study links landscape–mediated changes in the phylogenetic structure of natural communities to the disruption of ecosystem services. Measuring conservation success by species counts alone may fail to protect ecosystem functions and the full diversity of life from which they are derived.

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