1,625 research outputs found
Pollinator shortage and global crop yield
No full textFil: Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Laboratorio Ecotono; Argentina.Fil: Aizen, Marcelo A. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Laboratorio Ecotono; Argentina.Fil: Cunningham, Saul A. CSIRO Entomology; Australia.Fil: Klein, Alexandra M. University of California; USA.Fil: Klein, Alexandra M. University of Goettingen; Alemania.Fil: Aizen, Marcelo A. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET); Argentina.Fil: Aizen, Marcelo A. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente (INIBIOMA); Argentina.Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro. Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). Facultad de Agronomía; Argentina.A pollinator decline caused by environmental degradation might be compromising the production of pollinator-dependent crops. In a recent article, we compared 45 year series (1961–2006) in yield, production, and cultivated area of pollinator-dependent and nondependent crop around the world. If pollinator shortage is occurring globally, we expected a lower annual growth rate in yield for pollinator-dependent than nondependent crops, but a higher growth in cultivated area to compensate the lower yield. We have found little evidence for the first “yield” prediction but strong evidence for the second “area” prediction. Here, we present an additional analysis to show that the first and second predictions are both supported for crops that vary in dependency levels from nondependent to moderate dependence (i.e. up to 65% average yield reduction without pollinators). However, those crops for which animal pollination is essential (i.e. 95% average yield reduction without pollinators) showed higher growth in yield and lower expansion in area than expected in a pollination shortage scenario. We propose that pollination management for highly pollinator-dependent crops, such us renting hives or hand pollination, might have compensated for pollinator limitation of yield
How much does agriculture depend on pollinators? Lessons from long-term trends in crop production
No full textFil: Aizen, Marcelo A. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Laboratorio Ecotono; Argentina.Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Laboratorio Ecotono; Argentina.Fil: Cunningham, Saul A. CSIRO Entomology; Australia.Fil: Klein, Alexandra M. University of California; USA.Fil: Aizen, Marcelo A. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET); Argentina.Fil: Aizen, Marcelo A. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente (INIBIOMA); Argentina.Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro. Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). Facultad de Agronomía; Argentina.Fil: Klein, Alexandra M. University of Goettingen; Alemania.Abstract
Background and Aims
Productivity of many crops benefits from the presence of pollinating insects, so a decline in pollinator abundance should compromise global agricultural production. Motivated by the lack of accurate estimates of the size of this threat, we quantified the effect of total loss of pollinators on global agricultural production and crop production diversity. The change in pollinator dependency over 46 years was also evaluated, considering the developed and developing world separately.
Methods
Using the extensive FAO dataset, yearly data were compiled for 1961–2006 on production and cultivated area of 87 important crops, which we classified into five categories of pollinator dependency. Based on measures of the aggregate effect of differential pollinator dependence, the consequences of a complete loss of pollinators in terms of reductions in total agricultural production and diversity were calculated. An estimate was also made of the increase in total cultivated area that would be required to compensate for the decrease in production of every single crop in the absence of pollinators.
Key Results
The expected direct reduction in total agricultural production in the absence of animal pollination ranged from 3 to 8 %, with smaller impacts on agricultural production diversity. The percentage increase in cultivated area needed to compensate for these deficits was several times higher, particularly in the developing world, which comprises two-thirds of the land devoted to crop cultivation globally. Crops with lower yield growth tended to have undergone greater expansion in cultivated area. Agriculture has become more pollinator-dependent over time, and this trend is more pronounced in the developing than developed world.
Conclusions
We propose that pollination shortage will intensify demand for agricultural land, a trend that will be more pronounced in the developing world. This increasing pressure on supply of agricultural land could significantly contribute to global environmental change
A new sericomyiine flower fly from China (Diptera: Syrphidae)
No full textXie, Hongyan, Cunningham, Saul A., Yeates, David K., Thompson, F. Christian (2014): A new sericomyiine flower fly from China (Diptera: Syrphidae). Zootaxa 3860 (1): 81-86, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3860.1.
Incremental contribution of pollination and other ecosystem services to agricultural productivity: effects of service quantity and quality
No full textThis chapter presents the potential impact of agricultural pesticides on bees, which are beneficial insects that are important pollinators of both crops and wild plants. It describes the ecology of bees in intensively cultivated landscapes and the routes by which they are exposed to agrochemical toxicants. Neurotoxicants act by disrupting the otherwise coordinated activity of the insect nervous system. The chapter addresses the responses of regulatory authorities to meeting the challenge of deciding whether to allow a toxicant to be marketed as a plant protection product (PPP). It considers non-insecticides only insofar as they directly exacerbate the toxicity of insecticides by the so-called cocktail effect' and not for their indirectly detrimental effects on the environment of bees, such as reducing the abundance of wild flowers. In bees, the most sensitive endpoint that has been measured to date is the fecundity of bumble bees, as affected by a dietary neonicotinoid, imidacloprid.Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro; ArgentinaFil: Aizen, Marcelo Adrian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; ArgentinaFil: Cunningham, Saul A.. Australian National University; AustraliaFil: Harder, Lawrence. University of Calgary; CanadáFil: Klein, Alexandra M.. Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg; Alemani
FIGURES 2–5. Male genitalia. 2. 9 in A new sericomyiine flower fly from China (Diptera: Syrphidae)
No full textFIGURES 2–5. Male genitalia. 2. 9th tergum and associated structures, lateral. 3. 9th sternum and associated structures. 4. Left surstyle, lateral view. 5. 9th sternum and associated structures, ventral view.Published as part of Xie, Hongyan, Cunningham, Saul A., Yeates, David K. & Thompson, F. Christian, 2014, A new sericomyiine flower fly from China (Diptera: Syrphidae), pp. 81-86 in Zootaxa 3860 (1) on page 84, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3860.1.4, http://zenodo.org/record/28706
Incremental contribution of pollination and other ecosystem services to agricultural productivity: effects of service quantity and quality
No full textFil: Garibaldi, Lucas A. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. Río Negro, Argentina.Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas A. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. Río Negro, Argentina.Fil: Aizen, Marcelo A. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Río Negro, Argentina.Fil: Cunningham, Saul A. Australian National University. Australia.Fil: Harder, Lawrence. University of Calgary. Canada.Fil: Klein, Alexandra M. University of Freiburg. Alemania.
Long-Term Global Trends in Crop Yield and Production Reveal No Current Pollination Shortage but Increasing Pollinator Dependency
No full textSummaryThere is evidence that pollinators are declining as a result of local and global environmental degradation [1–4]. Because a sizable proportion of the human diet depends directly or indirectly on animal pollination [5], the issue of how decreases in pollinator stocks could affect global crop production is of paramount importance [6–8]. Using the extensive FAO data set [9], we compared 45 year series (1961–2006) in yield, and total production and cultivated area of pollinator-dependent and nondependent crops [5]. We investigated temporal trends separately for the developed and developing world because differences in agricultural intensification, and socioeconomic and environmental conditions might affect yield and pollinators [10–13]. Since 1961, crop yield (Mt/ha) has increased consistently at average annual growth rates of ∼1.5%. Temporal trends were similar between pollinator-dependent and nondependent crops in both the developed and developing world, thus not supporting the view that pollinator shortages are affecting crop yield at the global scale. We further report, however, that agriculture has become more pollinator dependent because of a disproportionate increase in the area cultivated with pollinator-dependent crops. If the trend toward favoring cultivation of pollinator-dependent crops continues, the need for the service provided by declining pollinators will greatly increase in the near future
Advances in pollination ecology from tropical plantation crops
No full textAlthough ecologists traditionally focus on natural ecosystems, there is growing awareness that mixed landscapes of managed and unmanaged systems provide a research environment for understanding basic ecological relationships on a large scale. Here, we show how tropical agroforestry systems can be used to develop ideas about the mechanisms that influence species diversity and subsequent biotic interactions at different spatial scales. Our focus is on tropical plantation crops, mainly coffee and cacao, and their pollinators, which are of basic ecological interest as partners in an important mutualistic interaction. We review how insect-mediated pollination services depend on local agroforest and natural habitats in surrounding landscapes. Further, we evaluate the functional significance of pollinator diversity and the explanatory value of species traits, and we provide an intercontinental comparison of pollinator assemblages. We found that optimal pollination success might be best understood as a consequence of niche complementarities among pollinators in landscapes harboring various species. We further show that small cavity-nesting bees and small generalist beetles were especially affected by isolation from forest and that larger-bodied insects in the same landscapes were not similarly affected. We suggest that mixed tropical landscapes with agroforestry systems have great potential for future research on the interactions between plants and pollinators
Merce Cunningham and his Technique
No full textThis thesis approaches the personal life, artistic creation and dance technique of American dancer and choreographer Mercier Philip Cunningham. The first part focuses on the artist?s life stages during his evolution in dance from the beginnings of his choreographic work, and seeks the origins for the establishment of his own dance company ? Merce Cunningham Dance Company. A chronological overview of his extensive repertoire is also incorporated. The second part deals with collaboration, connection and interaction among the dance, music, design and film fields during the artistic work of Merce Cunningham. Following the author?s experience with Cunningham technique, the final part is directed to an understanding of this dance technique, its principles and specific elements used in contemporary dance world
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