Seventy five percent of fruit production of the major global crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions. Here, we present CropPol, a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination. It contains measurements recorded from 189 crop studies, covering 3,216 field observations, 2,421 yield measurements (i.e. berry weight, number of fruits and kg per hectare, among others), and 46,262 insect records from 49 commercial crops distributed around the globe. CropPol comprises 32 of the 87 leading global crops and commodities that are pollinator dependent. Malus domestica is the most represented crop (25 studies), followed by Brassica napus (22 studies), Vaccinium corymbosum (13 studies), and Citrullus lanatus (12 studies). The most abundant pollinator guilds recorded are honey bees (33.12% counts), bumblebees (18.65%), flies other than Syrphidae and Bombyliidae (13.76%), other wild bees (13.51%), beetles (11.47%), Syrphidae (4.86%), and Bombyliidae (0.06%). Locations comprise 32 countries distributed among European (70 studies), Northern America (59), Latin America and the Caribbean (27), Asia (22), Oceania (10), and Africa (7). Sampling spans three decades and is concentrated on 2001-05 (21 studies), 2006-10 (38), 2011-15 (87), 2016-20 (40). This is the most comprehensive open global data set on measurements of crop flower visitors, crop pollinators and pollination to date and we encourage researchers to add more datasets to this database in the future. No copyright restrictions are associated with the use of this dataset. Please cite this data paper when the data are used in publications and cite individual studies when appropriate.

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Inadequate quantity and quality of pollen reaching the stigmas decreases the sexual reproductive output of plants, compromising yield. Still, the current extent of pollen limitation affecting yield (i.e., pollination deficits) is poorly quantified. This study is aimed at quantifying pollination deficits in kiwifruit orchards, a dioecious plant with a fruit caliber and market value largely dependent on pollination services. For that, we set up a pollination experiment and quantified services and yield provided by current pollination vectors, and under optimal pollination, over two years in a total of twenty-three orchards covering the kiwifruit production range in Portugal. We characterized nine fruit traits and used: (1) fruit weight to calculate pollination deficits and relate them with pollinator diversity and abundance, and environmental variables; and (2) production values, fruit caliber, and market values to calculate economic impact of pollination deficits. Results showed that pollination deficits were variable in time and space and were significantly and negatively correlated with pollinator abundance, while the opposite pattern was obtained for production, supporting the notion that a higher pollinator’s abundance is related to lower pollination deficits and higher yields. Understanding the factors affecting pollination deficits is crucial to depict the need for nature-based solutions promoting pollinators and to resort to management practices assisting pollination.

Las abejas son un grupo extremadamente diverso con más de 1000 especies descritas en la península ibérica. Además, son excelentes polinizadores y aportan numerosos servicios ecosistémicos fundamentales para la mayoría de ecosistemas terrestres. Debido a los diversos cambios ambientales inducidos por el ser humano, existen evidencias del declive de algunas de sus poblaciones para ciertas especies. Sin embargo, conocemos muy poco del estado de conservación de la mayoría de especies y de muchas de ellas ignoramos cuál es su distribución en la península ibérica. En este trabajo presentamos un esfuerzo colaborativo para crear una base de datos de ocurrencias de abejas que abarca la península ibérica e islas Baleares que permitirá resolver cuestiones como la distribución de las diferentes especies, preferencia de hábitat, fenología o tendencias históricas. En su versión actual, esta base de datos contiene un total de 87 684 registros de 923 especies recolectados entre 1830 y 2022, de los cuales un 87% presentan información georreferenciada. Para cada registro se incluye información relativa a la localidad de muestreo (89%), identificador y colector de la especie (64%), fecha de captura (54%) y planta donde se recolectó (20%). Creemos que esta base de datos es el punto de partida para conocer y conservar mejor la biodiversidad de abejas en la península ibérica e Islas Baleares. Se puede acceder a estos datos a través del siguiente enlace permanente: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6354502

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