Key tropical crops at risk from pollinator loss due to climate change and land use

Abstract

Insect pollinator biodiversity is changing rapidly, with potential consequences for the provision of crop pollination. However, the role of land use–climate interactions in pollinator biodiversity changes, as well as consequent economic effects via changes in crop pollination, remains poorly understood. We present a global assessment of the interactive effects of climate change and land use on pollinator abundance and richness and predictions of the risk to crop pollination from the inferred changes. Using a dataset containing 2673 sites and 3080 insect pollinator species, we show that the interactive combination of agriculture and climate change is associated with large reductions in insect pollinators. As a result, it is expected that the tropics will experience the greatest risk to crop production from pollinator losses. Localized risk is highest and predicted to increase most rapidly, in regions of sub-Saharan Africa, northern South America, and Southeast Asia. Via pollinator loss alone, climate change and agricultural land use could be a risk to human well-being.

Optimizing coffee production: Increased floral visitation and bean quality at plantation edges with wild pollinators and natural vegetation

“…Even if pollination improvement strategies have a cost to the farmers, the increase in quality and total production seems to pay off as there is also a huge gain in future sustainability of the crop. This will be especially important in the coming decades as coffee is one of the major tropical crops most vulnerable to loss of pollinators from changes to land use and climate (Millard et al, 2023).…”