Sustainable agricultural landscapes by definition provide high magnitude and stability of ecosystem services, biodiversity and crop productivity. However, few studies have considered landscape effects on the stability of ecosystem services. We tested whether isolation from florally diverse natural and semi-natural areas reduces the spatial and temporal stability of flower-visitor richness and pollination services in crop fields. We synthesised data from 29 studies with contrasting biomes, crop species and pollinator communities. Stability of flowervisitor richness, visitation rate (all insects except honey bees) and fruit set all decreased with distance from natural areas. At 1 km from adjacent natural areas, spatial stability decreased by 25, 16 and 9% for richness, visitation and fruit set, respectively, while temporal stability decreased by 39% for richness and 13% for visitation. Mean richness, visitation and fruit set also decreased with isolation, by 34, 27 and 16% at 1 km respectively. In contrast, honey bee visitation did not change with isolation and represented > 25% of crop visits in 21 studies. Therefore, wild pollinators are relevant for crop productivity and stability even when honey bees are abundant. Policies to preserve and restore natural areas in agricultural landscapes should enhance levels and reliability of pollination services.

Pollinating insects form a key component of European biodiversity, and provide a vital ecosystem service to crops and wild plants. There is growing evidence of declines in both wild and domesticated pollinators, and parallel declines in plants relying upon them. The STEP project (Status and Trends of European Pollinators, 2010–2015, www.step-project.net) is documenting critical elements in the nature and extent of these declines, examining key functional traits associated with pollination deficits, and developing a Red List for some European pollinator groups. Together these activities are laying the groundwork for future pollinator monitoring programmes. STEP is also assessing the relative importance of potential drivers of pollinator declines, including climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, agrochemicals, pathogens, alien species, light pollution, and their interactions. We are measuring the ecological and economic impacts of declining pollinator services and floral resources, including effects on wild plant populations, crop production and human nutrition. STEP is reviewing existing and potential mitigation options, and providing novel tests of their effectiveness across Europe. Our work is building upon existing and newly developed datasets and models, complemented by spatially-replicated campaigns of field research to fill gaps in current knowledge. Findings are being integrated into a policy-relevant framework to create evidence-based decision support tools. STEP is establishing communication links to a wide range of stakeholders across Europe and beyond, including policy makers, beekeepers, farmers, academics and the general public. Taken together, the STEP research programme aims to improve our understanding of the nature, causes, consequences and potential mitigation of declines in pollination services at local, national, continental and global scales.

Sustainable agricultural landscapes by definition provide high magnitude and stability of ecosystem services, biodiversity and crop productivity. However, few studies have considered landscape effects on the stability of ecosystem services. We tested whether isolation from florally diverse natural and semi-natural areas reduces the spatial and temporal stability of flower-visitor richness and pollination services in crop fields. We synthesised data from 29 studies with contrasting biomes, crop species and pollinator communities. Stability of flower-visitor richness, visitation rate (all insects except honey bees) and fruit set all decreased with distance from natural areas. At 1 km from adjacent natural areas, spatial stability decreased by 25, 16 and 9% for richness, visitation and fruit set, respectively, while temporal stability decreased by 39% for richness and 13% for visitation. Mean richness, visitation and fruit set also decreased with isolation, by 34, 27 and 16% at 1 km respectively. In contrast, honey bee visitation did not change with isolation and represented > 25% of crop visits in 21 studies. Therefore, wild pollinators are relevant for crop productivity and stability even when honey bees are abundant. Policies to preserve and restore natural areas in agricultural landscapes should enhance levels and reliability of pollination services.

Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 1062–1072 ABSTRACT: Sustainable agricultural landscapes by definition provide high magnitude and stability of ecosystem services, biodiversity and crop productivity. However, few studies have considered landscape effects on the stability of ecosystem services. We tested whether isolation from florally diverse natural and semi‐natural areas reduces the spatial and temporal stability of flower‐visitor richness and pollination services in crop fields. We synthesised data from 29 studies with contrasting biomes, crop species and pollinator communities. Stability of flower‐visitor richness, visitation rate (all insects except honey bees) and fruit set all decreased with distance from natural areas. At 1 km from adjacent natural areas, spatial stability decreased by 25, 16 and 9% for richness, visitation and fruit set, respectively, while temporal stability decreased by 39% for richness and 13% for visitation. Mean richness, visitation and fruit set also decreased with isolation, by 34, 27 and 16% at 1 km respectively. In contrast, honey bee visitation did not change with isolation and represented > 25% of crop visits in 21 studies. Therefore, wild pollinators are relevant for crop productivity and stability even when honey bees are abundant. Policies to preserve and restore natural areas in agricultural landscapes should enhance levels and reliability of pollination services.

To inspire new ideas in research on pollination ecology, we list the most important unanswered questions in the field. This list was drawn up by contacting 170 scientists from different areas of pollination ecology and asking them to contribute their opinion on the greatest knowledge gaps that need to be addressed. Almost 40% of them took part in our email poll and we received more than 650 questions and comments, which we classified into different categories representing various aspects of pollination research. The original questions were merged and synthesised, and a final vote and ranking led to the resultant list. The categories cover plant sexual reproduction, pollen and stigma biology, abiotic pollination, evolution of animal-mediated pollination, interactions of pollinators and floral antagonists, pollinator behaviour, taxonomy, plant-pollinator assemblages, geographical trends in diversity, drivers of pollinator loss, ecosystem services, management of pollination, and conservation issues such as the implementation of pollinator conservation. We focused on questions that were of a broad scope rather than case-specific; thus, addressing some questions may not be feasible within single research projects but constitute a general guide for future directions. With this compilation we hope to raise awareness of pollination-related topics not only among researchers but also among non-specialists including policy makers, funding agencies and the public at large.

To inspire new ideas in research on pollination ecology, we list the most important unanswered questions in the field. This list was drawn up by contacting 170 scientists from different areas of pollination ecology and asking them to contribute their opinion on the greatest knowledge gaps that need to be addressed. Almost 40% of them took part in our email poll and we received more than 650 questions and comments, which we classified into different categories representing various aspects of pollination research. The original questions were merged and synthesised, and a final vote and ranking led to the resultant list. The categories cover plant sexual reproduction, pollen and stigma biology, abiotic pollination, evolution of animal-mediated pollination, interactions of pollinators and floral antagonists, pollinator behaviour, taxonomy, plant-pollinator assemblages, geographical trends in diversity, drivers of pollinator loss, ecosystem services, management of pollination, and conservation issues such as the implementation of pollinator conservation. We focused on questions that were of a broad scope rather than case-specific; thus, addressing some questions may not be feasible within single research projects but constitute a general guide for future directions. With this compilation we hope to raise awareness of pollination-related topics not only among researchers but also among non-specialists including policy makers, funding agencies and the public at large. download Appendix

Premise of the study: Pollination is a key aspect of ecosystem function in the majority of land plant communities. It is well established that many animal-pollinated plants suffer lower seed set than they are capable of, likely because of competition for pollinators. Previously, competition for pollinator services has been shown to be most intense in communities with the greatest plant diversity. In spite of the fact that community evolutionary relations have a demonstrated impact on many ecological processes, their role in competition for pollinator services has rarely been examined. METHODS: In this study, we explore relations among several aspects of the surrounding plant community, including species richness, phylodiversity, evolutionary distance from a focal species, and pollen limitation in an annual insect-pollinated plant. Key results: We did not find a significant effect of species richness on competition for pollination. However, consistent with a greater role for facilitation than competition, we found that a focal species occurring in communities composed of species of close relatives, especially other members of the Asteraceae, was less pollen limited than when it occurred in communities composed of more distant relatives. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate that community phylodiversity is an important correlate of pollen limitation in this system and that it has greater explanatory power than species richness alone.

Maintaining the relationships between plants and pollinators is vital to ecosystem stability. Insecticides may disturb these interactions with poorly understood consequences for pollination. Community level research is essential, if we are to understand the wider effects of insecticides on a variety of pollinating taxa and the impacts on the plants they pollinate. In this article we discuss the potential effects of both the lethal and sub-lethal impacts of insecticide use in agro-ecosystems on pollination services by bees. In particular, we consider how particular life-history traits of pollinators, such as sociality and floral specialisation may be differentially affected by insecticides. We discuss how this might translate through to pollination services. We propose that a trait-based approach can give insight into the potential impacts of insecticides on plant–pollinator communities.

Agricultural systems are no longer evaluated solely on the basis of the food they provide, but also on their capacity to limit impacts on the environment, such as soil conservation, water quality and biodiversity conservation, as well as their contribution to mitigating and adapting to climate change. In order to cope with these multiple service functions, they must internalize the costs and benefits of their environmental impact. Payments for ecosystem services are hoped to encourage and promote sustainable practices via financial incentives. The authors show that while the principle is straightforward, the practice is much more complicated. Whereas scenic beauty and protection of water sources provide benefits to the local population, carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation can be considered international public goods, rendering potential payment schemes more complex. Few examples exist where national or international bodies have been able to set up viable mechanisms that compensate agricultural systems for the environmental services they provide. However this book provides several examples of successful programs, and aims to transfer them to other regions of the world. The authors show that a product can be sold if it is clearly quantified, there exists a means to determine the service's values, and there is a willing buyer. The first two sections of the book present methodological issues related to the quantification and marketing of ecosystem services from agriculture, including agroforestry. The third and final section presents case studies of practical payments for ecosystem services and experiences in Central and South America, and draws some lessons learnt for effective and sustainable development of ecosystem services compensation mechanisms. Contents: Contributors. Foreword. Introduction. Part I. Measuring ecosystem services. 1. Principles and methods for assessing climate change mitigation as an ecosystem service in agroecosystems. 2. Quantifying services and identifying watershed priority areas for soil and water conservation programs. 3. Measuring biodiversity. 4. Ecological mechanisms for pest and disease control in coffee and cacao agroecosystems of the neotropics. 5. Services from plant-pollinator interactions in the neotropics. 6. Ecological indexing as a tool for the payment of ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes: the experience of the GEF-silvopastoral project in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Colombia. Part II. Marketing ecosystem services. 7. Estimating the cost and benefits of supplying hydrological ecosystem services: an application for small-scale rural drinking water organizations. 8. Developing a business plan for forestry and other land-use based carbon projects. 9. A functional anatomy of the project-based carbon markets. 10. The value of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. 11: PES and ecolabel: a comparative analysis of their limits and opportunities to foster environmental services provision. Part III. From theory to practice: tales of success and lessons learned. 12. Leveraging and sustainability of PES: lessons learnt in Costa Rica. 13. The Mexican PES programme: targeting for higher efficiency in environmental protection and poverty alleviation. 14. Assessing the impact of institutional design of payments for environmental services: the Costa Rican experience. 15. Certification process in the coffee value chain: achievements and limits to foster provision of environmental services. 16. Securing the continuous supply of drinking water in a territory requires concerted actions and integrating intervention strategies: a case study in Copan Ruinas, Honduras. 17. Payment for environmental services: perfecting an imperfect market, building up environmental solutions. 18. Measurement and payment of ecosystem services from agriculture and agroforestry: new insights from the neotropics