Wild insect diversity increases inter-annual stability in global crop pollinator communities.

Senapathi, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8883-1583, Fründ, J., Albrecht, M., Garratt, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0196-6013, Kleijn, D., Pickles, B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9809-6455, Potts, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2045-980X, An, J., Andersson, G. K. S., Bänsch, S., Basu, P., Benjamin, F., Bezerra, A. D. M., Bhattacharya, R., Biesmeijer, J. C., Blaauw, B., Blitzer, E. J., Brittain, C. A., Carvalheiro, L. G., Cariveau, D. P., Chakraborty, P., Chatterjee, A., Chatterjee, S., Cusser, S., Danforth, B. N., Degani, E., Freitas, B. M., Garibaldi, L. A., Geslin, B., de Groot, G. A., Harrison, T., Howlett, B., Isaacs, R., Jha, S., Klatt, B. K., Krewenka, K., Leigh, S., Lindström, S. A. M., Mandelik, Y., McKerchar, M., Park, M., Pisanty, G., Rader, R., Reemer, M., Rundlöf, M., Smith, B., Smith, H. G., Silva, P. N., Steffan-Dewenter, I., Tscharntke, T., Webber, S., Westbury, D. B., Wickens, J. B., Wickens, V. J., Winfree, R., Zhang, H. and Klein, A.-M. (2021) Wild insect diversity increases inter-annual stability in global crop pollinator communities. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288 (1947). ISSN 0962-8452 doi: 10.1098/rspb.2021.0212

Abstract/Summary

While an increasing number of studies indicate that range, diversity and abundance of many wild pollinators has declined, the global area of pollinator-dependent crops has significantly increased over the last few decades. Crop pollination studies to date, have mainly focused on either identifying different guilds pollinating various crops, or on factors driving spatial changes and turnover observed in these communities. The mechanisms driving temporal stability for ecosystem functioning and services, however, remain poorly understood. Our study quantifies temporal variability observed in crop pollinators in 21 different crops across multiple years at a global scale. Using data from 43 studies from six continents, we show that (i) higher pollinator diversity confers greater inter-annual stability in pollinator communities, (ii) temporal variation observed in pollinator abundance is primarily driven by the three most dominant species, and (iii) crops in tropical regions demonstrate higher inter-annual variability in pollinator species richness than crops in temperate regions. We highlight the importance of recognising wild pollinator diversity in agricultural landscapes to stabilize pollinator persistence across years to protect both biodiversity and crop pollination services. Short-term agricultural management practices aimed at dominant species for stabilising pollination services need to be considered alongside longer-term conservation goals focussed on maintaining and facilitating biodiversity to confer ecological stability.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/96482
Identification Number/DOI	10.1098/rspb.2021.0212
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of Sustainable Land Management > Centre for Agri-environmental Research (CAER)
Uncontrolled Keywords	pollinators, temporal stability, crops, insect diversity, inter-annual variation, dominant species
Publisher	Royal Society Publishing
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