1. Pollination Services
Sustainable Food Trust Workshop 3rd December 2013, Deans Yard, Westminster
Dr Adam Vanbergen
Science Co-ordinator of UK Insect Pollinators Initiative
NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Edinburgh
0131 445 8527 AJV@CEH.AC.UK
3. Importance of Insect Pollination
• Ecological Keystone: 78-94% of wild plants
have some dependence on animal pollination
(Ollerton et al. 2011)
• Food Security: ~75% of crop species have
some dependence on insect pollination (Klein
et al 2007)
4. Importance of Insect Pollination
• Human Health: insect-pollinated crops provide
crucial dietary diversity and nutrients (calories,
protein, vitamins, calcium & fluoride) (Eilers et al
2011)
•Economic value of pollination services to crops:
- Globally $215 billion (2005 US$) (Gallai et al 2009)
- UK ~£440 million (2007£) (National Ecosystem
Assessment 2011)
5. Multiple Pressures on Pollinators
Vanbergen A.J. and the Insect Pollinators Initiative (2013). Threats to
Climate in Ecology
Land Use
an ecosystem service: pressures on pollinators. FrontiersChange
Climate Change
(B) Climate Change
Intensification
and the Environment, 11, 5 : 251-259 doi: 10.1890/120126
Habitat loss &
fragmentation, pesticides, mo
nocultures
urbanization
Spatial and phenological
mismatch
Pests & Pathogens
Alien Species
Co-infection, pest-pathogen
and pathogen synergies
Competition, facilitation,
disease spread
6. Delivery & Resilience of Pollination Services
1. Pollinator abundance/flower visitation rate
2. Pollinator diversity (complementarity, redundancy
or facilitation)
3. Diversity of functional traits (morphological and
behavioural adaptations)
8. Apple Fruit Set
• Garratt, M. P. D. et al. (2013). Journal of Pollination Ecology
50
Cox
45
Gala
40
% fruitset
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Pollinator
exclusion
Open pollinated Hand pollinated
Cox
Pollinator
exclusion
Open pollinated Hand pollinated
Gala
9. Different Crops Require Different Pollinators
Oil Seed Rape (canola)
Field Beans
0.0006
0.000016
0.000014
Visits/flower/min
0.0005
0.000012
0.0004
0.0003
0.00001
0.000008
0.000006
0.0002
0.000004
0.0001
0
0.000002
0
Source: Garratt et al. (2014) Biological Conservation, 169 128–135.
10. Modelling Pollination Services
• Bee species richness
extrapolated from occurrence
records
• Agricultural statistics (e.g.
field bean cover)
• Predicted pollination service:
potential deficits?
Source: Polce et al. (2013) PLoS ONE, 8, e76308
11. Crop Pollination Services in Great Britain
• Pollinator biodiversity has a role in crop productivity
• Some potential for sub-optimal pollination (e.g. apple)
and spatial gaps in species diversity of crop pollinators
• Pollination service maps require care: spatial
resolution & lack of abundance data
• Functional relationship between pollinator biodiversity
and crop yield/value remains unclear, especially at
policy-relevant scales (i.e. farm to landscape)
FD is weighted by species occurrence, so as species become rarer their contribution to functional diversity and pollination service provision is reduced
Mike Garratt: Basically this is from a cage experiment where we manipulated the visitation rate to each of the crops by each of the pollinators. The different colours represent the different pollinators and then the paler shades are lower visitation rates. 1, 2 and 4 average visits per flower for beans and 1 and 3 average visits per flower for OSR. The grey shades are no insect pollinator visits and hand pollination (or max pollination). The graph basically reflects the pollination efficiency of each of the pollinators for each of the crops. For beans BB, MB and HB > Hoverflies and also BB > HB and for OSR BB, MB and HB > Hoverflies but hoverflies are still better than no insect visits. The graph in the manuscript has letters to show these significant effects.
