The need for coordinated transdisciplinary research infrastructures for pollinator conservation and crop pollination resilience

Abstract

There is a growing concern about the status and trends of animal pollinators worldwide. Pollinators provide a key service to both wild plants and crops by mediating their reproduction, so pollinator conservation is of fundamental importance to conservation and to food production. Understanding of the extent of pollinator declines is constrained by the paucity of accessible data, which leads to geographically-and taxonomically-biased assessments. In addition, land conversion to agriculture and intensive agricultural management are two of the main threats to pollinators. This is paradoxical, as crop production depends on pollinators to maximize productivity. There is a need to reconcile conservation and ecosystem service provision in agroecosystems. These challenges require coordinated transdisciplinary research infrastructures. Specifically, we need better research infrastructures to (i) describe pollinator decline patterns worldwide, (ii) monitor current pollinator trends, and (iii) understand how to enhance pollinators and pollination in agroecosystems. This can be achieved, first, by redoubling the efforts to make historical occurrence data on species occurrences, interactions and traits openly available and easy to integrate across databases. Second, by empowering citizen science to monitor key pollinator species in a coordinated way and standardizing and consolidating long term collection protocols both in natural and agricultural areas. Finally, there is a need to develop multi-actor, localised research infrastructures allowing integration of social, economic and ecological approaches in agriculture. We illustrate how decentralized infrastructures can accelerate the process of co-producing research and integrating data collection across scientists, managers, members of the public, farmers and disciplines. The time is ripe to harness the power of coordinated research infrastructures to understand and mitigate pollinator declines.

Working landscapes need at least 20% native habitat

“…Implementation of a >20% NWL area target poses challenges. Regardless of the starting point, conserving NWL requires coordination between different levels and sectors within governments, land owners and managers, corporations, and civil society organizations (Bartomeus & Dicks, 2019;Ellis, 2019). The integration of different social actors in codesigning and managing NWL has already proven successful for a range of conservation problems across countries (Bartomeus & Dicks, 2019;Ellis, 2019).…”

“…Regardless of the starting point, conserving NWL requires coordination between different levels and sectors within governments, land owners and managers, corporations, and civil society organizations (Bartomeus & Dicks, 2019;Ellis, 2019). The integration of different social actors in codesigning and managing NWL has already proven successful for a range of conservation problems across countries (Bartomeus & Dicks, 2019;Ellis, 2019). For example, land stewardship pacts between working-lands stakeholders have delivered species conservation plans, sustainable farming practices, and habitat restoration initiatives by capitalizing on common interests (Bartomeus & Dicks, 2019;Ellis, 2019).…”

“…The integration of different social actors in codesigning and managing NWL has already proven successful for a range of conservation problems across countries (Bartomeus & Dicks, 2019;Ellis, 2019). For example, land stewardship pacts between working-lands stakeholders have delivered species conservation plans, sustainable farming practices, and habitat restoration initiatives by capitalizing on common interests (Bartomeus & Dicks, 2019;Ellis, 2019). Clearly, to succeed, NWL restoration will require global and national policy targets, such as those outlined here, alongside local implementation agreements and plans, tailored to different socioeconomic conditions (Locke et al, 2019).…”

Farmers’ Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Pollination and Bees in a Maize-Producing Region of Zimbabwe: Implications for Pollinator Conservation

“…In agroecosystems, pollinators have the most monetary and social values but concomitantly are potentially most threatened (Bartomeus & Dicks, 2019;Potts et al, 2016). In many agricultural-dominated landscapes in developing countries, information on pollinator populations and dynamics is scarce.…”

The joint economic impact level (jEIL): a decision metric for integrated pest and pollinator management

“…Furthermore, these effects can translate into impacts on crop pollination service (Brittain and Potts, 2011;Stanley et al, 2015). Hence, owing to the potentially large and negative effects of pesticides on pollinators, up-take of more balanced pest control strategies -such as those inherent in an IPM approach -are increasingly demanded (Dicks et al, 2016; Bartomeus and Dicks, 2018). This explicit incorporation into IPM of the goal of protecting pollinators from the harmful effects of pesticides has been termed by Biddinger and Rajotte (2015) as Integrated Pest and Pollinator Management (IPPM).…”