Catalytic potential of pollination services to reconcile conservation and agricultural production: a spatial optimization framework
With a global pollinator crisis brewing, it is urgent that we preserve forests supporting wild bees and the services they provide, even in context where agricultural expansion is unavoidable. Though the maintenance of pollination services are known to be synergistic with biodiversity conservation an...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2021-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac07d4 |
| _version_ | 1797747644302360576 |
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| author | Sofía López-Cubillos Rebecca K Runting Margaret M Mayfield Eve Mcdonald-Madden |
| author_facet | Sofía López-Cubillos Rebecca K Runting Margaret M Mayfield Eve Mcdonald-Madden |
| author_sort | Sofía López-Cubillos |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | With a global pollinator crisis brewing, it is urgent that we preserve forests supporting wild bees and the services they provide, even in context where agricultural expansion is unavoidable. Though the maintenance of pollination services are known to be synergistic with biodiversity conservation and agricultural economic development, there are few decision support tools that explicitly show how to balance these competing objectives. We developed a novel, spatially explicit method that includes pollination supply, flow, demand, and benefits into an agricultural expansion context to improve land use decisions for agricultural outcomes that minimize environmental impacts. We provide the first study showing the trade-offs between yields and forest retention that uses all the components of pollination services across five planning scenarios (i.e. (a) baseline, (b) absence of pollinators, (c) pollinators present, (d) pollination and non-aggregated forest, (e) pollination and aggregated forest) using data on coffee from Costa Rica. The scenario that showed the highest trade-offs was when pollination services are considered unimportant, which led to a decrease on average yields (∼−23% compared to baseline), whilst also decimating remaining forest (−100% compared to baseline). Better forest retention was achieved in a scenario where pollination services were considered and more forest aggregation was required. In this case, total production incremented by ∼29% while ∼74% of forest patches were preserved. The flexibility of our framework allows adaptation to any crop that benefit from pollination services in different landscape contexts. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:53:31Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2a734bb9e3b0403e965882b83b98d2af |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:53:31Z |
| publishDate | 2021-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-2a734bb9e3b0403e965882b83b98d2af2023-08-09T15:00:47ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262021-01-0116606409810.1088/1748-9326/ac07d4Catalytic potential of pollination services to reconcile conservation and agricultural production: a spatial optimization frameworkSofía López-Cubillos0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9899-9099Rebecca K Runting1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0614-1456Margaret M Mayfield2Eve Mcdonald-Madden3School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland , Brisbane, Australia; Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland , Brisbane, AustraliaSchool of Geography, University of Melbourne , Melbourne, AustraliaSchool of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland , Brisbane, AustraliaSchool of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland , Brisbane, Australia; Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland , Brisbane, AustraliaWith a global pollinator crisis brewing, it is urgent that we preserve forests supporting wild bees and the services they provide, even in context where agricultural expansion is unavoidable. Though the maintenance of pollination services are known to be synergistic with biodiversity conservation and agricultural economic development, there are few decision support tools that explicitly show how to balance these competing objectives. We developed a novel, spatially explicit method that includes pollination supply, flow, demand, and benefits into an agricultural expansion context to improve land use decisions for agricultural outcomes that minimize environmental impacts. We provide the first study showing the trade-offs between yields and forest retention that uses all the components of pollination services across five planning scenarios (i.e. (a) baseline, (b) absence of pollinators, (c) pollinators present, (d) pollination and non-aggregated forest, (e) pollination and aggregated forest) using data on coffee from Costa Rica. The scenario that showed the highest trade-offs was when pollination services are considered unimportant, which led to a decrease on average yields (∼−23% compared to baseline), whilst also decimating remaining forest (−100% compared to baseline). Better forest retention was achieved in a scenario where pollination services were considered and more forest aggregation was required. In this case, total production incremented by ∼29% while ∼74% of forest patches were preserved. The flexibility of our framework allows adaptation to any crop that benefit from pollination services in different landscape contexts.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac07d4pollinatorscrop yieldsagricultural landscapesspatial optimizationsmall landholderstrade-offs |
| spellingShingle | Sofía López-Cubillos Rebecca K Runting Margaret M Mayfield Eve Mcdonald-Madden Catalytic potential of pollination services to reconcile conservation and agricultural production: a spatial optimization framework Environmental Research Letters pollinators crop yields agricultural landscapes spatial optimization small landholders trade-offs |
| title | Catalytic potential of pollination services to reconcile conservation and agricultural production: a spatial optimization framework |
| title_full | Catalytic potential of pollination services to reconcile conservation and agricultural production: a spatial optimization framework |
| title_fullStr | Catalytic potential of pollination services to reconcile conservation and agricultural production: a spatial optimization framework |
| title_full_unstemmed | Catalytic potential of pollination services to reconcile conservation and agricultural production: a spatial optimization framework |
| title_short | Catalytic potential of pollination services to reconcile conservation and agricultural production: a spatial optimization framework |
| title_sort | catalytic potential of pollination services to reconcile conservation and agricultural production a spatial optimization framework |
| topic | pollinators crop yields agricultural landscapes spatial optimization small landholders trade-offs |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac07d4 |
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