Coupling of pollination services and coffee suitability under climate change

Abstract

Climate change will cause geographic range shifts for pollinators and major crops, with global implications for food security and rural livelihoods. However, little is known about the potential for coupled impacts of climate change on pollinators and crops. Coffee production exemplifies this issue, because large losses in areas suitable for coffee production have been projected due to climate change and because coffee production is dependent on bee pollination. We modeled the potential distributions of coffee and coffee pollinators under current and future climates in Latin America to understand whether future coffee-suitable areas will also be suitable for pollinators. Our results suggest that coffeesuitable areas will be reduced 73-88% by 2050 across warming scenarios, a decline 46-76% greater than estimated by global assessments. Mean bee richness will decline 8-18% within future coffee-suitable areas, but all are predicted to contain at least 5 bee species, and 46-59% of future coffee-suitable areas will contain 10 or more species. In our models, coffee suitability and bee richness each increase (i.e., positive coupling) in 10-22% of future coffee-suitable areas. Diminished coffee suitability and bee richness (i.e., negative coupling), however, occur in 34-51% of other areas. Finally, in 31-33% of the future coffee distribution areas, bee richness decreases and coffee suitability increases. Assessing coupled effects of climate change on crop suitability and pollination can help target appropriate management practices, including forest conservation, shade adjustment, crop rotation, or status quo, in different regions.coffee | adaptation strategies | smallholder farms | suitability modeling | pollination C limate change impact assessments suggest a significant reduction, up to 50% (1, 2), in the global area suitable for coffee farming by midcentury. Such losses will affect the livelihoods of 100 million people in the coffee industry (2). The direct effect of climate change on the climatic suitability of coffee farms may be mitigated or accentuated by further effect on pollinators (3). These coupled effects have not been examined in coffee climate studies.Pollinator activity at flowers has a positive effect on coffee yield (4), fruit set (5-7), and berry weight (4, 7). Significant fruit set increases occur on coffee farms as the number of bee species increases from 3 to 20 (5). Native bee species are often more effective coffee pollinators than nonnative honey bees (8), and maximizing their diversity can help provide continuous pollination over time (9). The number of flower visits and pollen deposition on flowers are higher for coffee plants close to the forest (5, 9-11) because food and nesting sites maintain pollinator populations year-round (9). Native bee foraging activity declines within hundreds of meters (up to 1,600 m) from forests where bees nest (9), making forest proximity an important determinant of pollination service. In tropical forest regions where coffee is grown, the abundant native bees are ...

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