Optimal restoration for pollination services increases forest cover while doubling agricultural profits.
Pollinators are currently facing dramatic declines in abundance and richness across the globe. This can have profound impacts on agriculture, as 75% of globally common food crops benefit from pollination services. As many native bee species require natural areas for nesting, restoration efforts with...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2023-05-01
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| Series: | PLoS Biology |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002107 |
| _version_ | 1797812013093617664 |
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| author | Sofía López-Cubillos Eve McDonald-Madden Margaret M Mayfield Rebecca K Runting |
| author_facet | Sofía López-Cubillos Eve McDonald-Madden Margaret M Mayfield Rebecca K Runting |
| author_sort | Sofía López-Cubillos |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Pollinators are currently facing dramatic declines in abundance and richness across the globe. This can have profound impacts on agriculture, as 75% of globally common food crops benefit from pollination services. As many native bee species require natural areas for nesting, restoration efforts within croplands may be beneficial to support pollinators and enhance agricultural yields. Yet, restoration can be challenging to implement due to large upfront costs and the removal of land from production. Designing sustainable landscapes will require planning approaches that include the complex spatiotemporal dynamics of pollination services flowing from (restored) vegetation into crops. We present a novel planning framework to determine the best spatial arrangement for restoration in agricultural landscapes while accounting for yield improvements over 40 years following restoration. We explored a range of production and conservation goals using a coffee production landscape in Costa Rica as a case study. Our results show that strategic restoration can increase forest cover by approximately 20% while doubling collective landholder profits over 40 years, even when accounting for land taken out of production. We show that restoration can provide immense economic benefits in the long run, which may be pivotal to motivating local landholders to undertake conservation endeavours in pollinator-dependent croplands. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-13T07:32:16Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2ff38ba438984aa4b77cd7fbbf4bcfff |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1544-9173 1545-7885 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-13T07:32:16Z |
| publishDate | 2023-05-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS Biology |
| spelling | doaj.art-2ff38ba438984aa4b77cd7fbbf4bcfff2023-06-04T05:31:12ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Biology1544-91731545-78852023-05-01215e300210710.1371/journal.pbio.3002107Optimal restoration for pollination services increases forest cover while doubling agricultural profits.Sofía López-CubillosEve McDonald-MaddenMargaret M MayfieldRebecca K RuntingPollinators are currently facing dramatic declines in abundance and richness across the globe. This can have profound impacts on agriculture, as 75% of globally common food crops benefit from pollination services. As many native bee species require natural areas for nesting, restoration efforts within croplands may be beneficial to support pollinators and enhance agricultural yields. Yet, restoration can be challenging to implement due to large upfront costs and the removal of land from production. Designing sustainable landscapes will require planning approaches that include the complex spatiotemporal dynamics of pollination services flowing from (restored) vegetation into crops. We present a novel planning framework to determine the best spatial arrangement for restoration in agricultural landscapes while accounting for yield improvements over 40 years following restoration. We explored a range of production and conservation goals using a coffee production landscape in Costa Rica as a case study. Our results show that strategic restoration can increase forest cover by approximately 20% while doubling collective landholder profits over 40 years, even when accounting for land taken out of production. We show that restoration can provide immense economic benefits in the long run, which may be pivotal to motivating local landholders to undertake conservation endeavours in pollinator-dependent croplands.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002107 |
| spellingShingle | Sofía López-Cubillos Eve McDonald-Madden Margaret M Mayfield Rebecca K Runting Optimal restoration for pollination services increases forest cover while doubling agricultural profits. PLoS Biology |
| title | Optimal restoration for pollination services increases forest cover while doubling agricultural profits. |
| title_full | Optimal restoration for pollination services increases forest cover while doubling agricultural profits. |
| title_fullStr | Optimal restoration for pollination services increases forest cover while doubling agricultural profits. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Optimal restoration for pollination services increases forest cover while doubling agricultural profits. |
| title_short | Optimal restoration for pollination services increases forest cover while doubling agricultural profits. |
| title_sort | optimal restoration for pollination services increases forest cover while doubling agricultural profits |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002107 |
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