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,
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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