Habitat fragmentation and food security in crop pollination systems

AbstractEnsuring stable food supplies is recognized as a major challenge for the 21st century, and one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Biodiversity-based approaches to food security are increasingly being supported based on the fact that biodiversity can increase and stabilize crop yields. But agricultural systems are often highly fragmented and it is unclear how such fragmentation affects biodiversity and food production, limiting our capacity to manage agricultural landscapes for food security. Here, we develop a model of crop yield dynamics to investigate how fragmentation of natural habitats for agricultural conversion impacts food production, with a focus on crop pollination. Our results show that fragmentation produces spatial and biodiversity-mediated effects that affect the mean and stability of pollination-dependent crops, with strong consequences for food security. The net effects of fragmentation depend on the strength of the spillover of pollinators to crop land and the degree to which crops depend on animal pollination. Our study sheds new light in the food security debate by showing that high and stable yields depend on biodiversity and the spatial structure of agricultural landscapes, and by revealing the ecological mechanisms of food security in crop pollination systems.

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On the inconsistency of pollinator species traits for predicting either response to agricultural intensification or functional contribution

10.1101/072132 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ignasi Bartomeus ◽

Daniel P. Cariveau ◽

Tina Harrison ◽

Rachael Winfree

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Function ◽

Agricultural Intensification ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Species Traits ◽

Crop Pollination ◽

Wild Bees ◽

Ecological Processes ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Species Response ◽

Pollination Systems

AbstractThe response and effect trait framework, if supported empirically, would provide for powerful and general predictions about how biodiversity loss will lead to loss in ecosystem function. This framework proposes that species traits will explain how different species respond to disturbance (i.e. response traits) as well as their contribution to ecosystem function (i.e. effect traits). However, predictive response and effect traits remain elusive for most systems. Here, we present detailed data on crop pollination services provided by native, wild bees to explore the role of six commonly used species traits in determining how crop pollination is affected by increasing agricultural intensification. Analyses were conducted in parallel for three crop systems (watermelon, cranberry, and blueberry) located within the same geographical region (mid-Atlantic USA). Bee species traits did not strongly predict species’ response to agricultural intensification, and the few traits that were weakly predictive were not consistent across crops. Similarly, no trait predicted species’ overall functional contribution in any of the three crop systems, although body size was a good predictor of per capita efficiency in two systems. So far, most studies looking for response or effect traits in pollination systems have found weak and often contradicting links. Overall we were unable to make generalizable predictions regarding species responses to land-use change and its effect on the delivery of ecosystem services. Pollinator traits may be useful for understanding ecological processes in some systems, but thus far the promise of traits-based ecology has yet to be fulfilled for pollination ecology.

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Checklist of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) from small diversified vegetable farms in south-western Montana

Biodiversity Data Journal ◽

10.3897/bdj.7.e30062 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Casey Delphia ◽

Terry Griswold ◽

Elizabeth Reese ◽

Kevin O'Neill ◽

Laura Burkle

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

North Carolina ◽

Western Montana ◽

Crop Pollination ◽

Wild Bees ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Species List ◽

Wild Bee ◽

Wildflower Strips ◽

Pollination Systems

Over three years (2013-2015), we sampled bees using nets and bowl traps on four diversified vegetable farms in Gallatin County, Montana, USA, as part of a study evaluating the use of wildflower strips for supporting wild bees and crop pollination services on farmlands (Delphia et al. In prep). We document 202 species and morphospecies from 32 genera within five families, of which 25 species represent the first published state records for Montana. This study increases our overall understanding of the distribution of wild bee species associated with agroecosystems of the northern US Rockies, which is important for efforts aimed at conserving bee biodiversity and supporting sustainable crop pollination systems on farmlands.We provide a species list of wild bees associated with diversified farmlands in Montana and increase the number of published bee species records in the state from 374 to at least 399. The list includes new distributional records for 25 wild bee species, including two species that represent considerable expansions of their known ranges, Lasioglossum (Dialictus) clematisellum (Cockerell 1904) with previously published records from New Mexico, Arizona, California and Utah and Melissodes (Eumelissodes) niveus Robertson 1895 which was reported to range from New York to Minnesota and Kansas, south to North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi.

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Pollinator declines: reconciling scales and implications for ecosystem services

F1000Research ◽

10.12688/f1000research.2-146.v1 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. 146 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Ignasi Bartomeus ◽

Rachael Winfree

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Global Change ◽

Scientific Data ◽

Published Data ◽

Crop Pollination ◽

Northeastern North America ◽

Actual Contribution ◽

Species Specific ◽

Pollinator Declines

Despite the widespread concern about the fate of pollinators and the ecosystem services they deliver, we still have surprisingly scarce scientific data on the magnitude of pollinator declines and its actual contribution to crop pollination and food security. We use recently published data from northeastern North America to show that studies at both the local and regional scales are needed to understand pollinator declines, and that species-specific responses to global change are broadly consistent across scales. Second, we show that bee species that are currently delivering most of the ecosystem services (i.e. crop pollination) are not among the species showing declining trends, but rather appear to thrive in human-dominated landscapes.

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Constructing more informative plant–pollinator networks: visitation and pollen deposition networks in a heathland plant community

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2015.1130 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 282 (1814) ◽

pp. 20151130 ◽

Cited By ~ 75

Author(s):

G. Ballantyne ◽

Katherine C. R. Baldock ◽

P. G. Willmer

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Plant Community ◽

Interaction Networks ◽

Pollen Deposition ◽

Pollinator Effectiveness ◽

Pollinator Importance ◽

Visit Frequency ◽

Low Diversity ◽

Pollination Systems ◽

Plant Pollinator

Interaction networks are widely used as tools to understand plant–pollinator communities, and to examine potential threats to plant diversity and food security if the ecosystem service provided by pollinating animals declines. However, most networks to date are based on recording visits to flowers, rather than recording clearly defined effective pollination events. Here we provide the first networks that explicitly incorporate measures of pollinator effectiveness (PE) from pollen deposition on stigmas per visit, and pollinator importance (PI) as the product of PE and visit frequency. These more informative networks, here produced for a low diversity heathland habitat, reveal that plant–pollinator interactions are more specialized than shown in most previous studies. At the studied site, the specialization index was lower for the visitation network than the PE network, which was in turn lower than for the PI network. Our study shows that collecting PE data is feasible for community-level studies in low diversity communities and that including information about PE can change the structure of interaction networks. This could have important consequences for our understanding of threats to pollination systems.

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Enhancing legume crop pollination and natural pest regulation for improved food security in changing African landscapes

Global Food Security ◽

10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100394 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 26 ◽

pp. 100394

Author(s):

Mark Otieno ◽

Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter ◽

Simon G. Potts ◽

Wanja Kinuthia ◽

Muo John Kasina ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Crop Pollination ◽

Legume Crop ◽

Natural Pest Regulation

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Food Security Surveillance in the Palestinian Territories

Prehospital and Disaster Medicine ◽

10.1017/s1049023x00009389 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 17 (S2) ◽

pp. S20-S21

Author(s):

Gregg Greenough ◽

Ziad Abdeen ◽

Bdour Dandies ◽

Radwan Qasrawi

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Palestinian Territories ◽

Security Surveillance

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Averting robo-bees: why free-flying robotic bees are a bad idea

Emerging Topics in Life Sciences ◽

10.1042/etls20190063 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (6) ◽

pp. 723-729

Author(s):

Roslyn Gleadow ◽

Jim Hanan ◽

Alan Dorin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Computer Simulation ◽

Food Security ◽

European Countries ◽

Plant Interactions ◽

Plant Insect Interactions ◽

Native Habitat ◽

Insect Pollinators ◽

Insect Interactions

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.

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