It is only recently that the immense economic value of pollination to agriculture has been appreciated. At the same time, the alarming collapse in populations of bees and other pollinators has highlighted the urgency of addressing this issue. Pollination Services to Agriculture focuses on the specific measures and practices that the emerging science of pollination ecology is identifying to conserve and promote animal pollinators in agroecosystems.
It reviews the expanding knowledge base on pollination services, providing evidence to document the status, trends and importance of pollinators to sustainable agricultural production. It provides practical and specific measures that land managers can undertake to ensure that agroecosystems are supportive and friendly to pollinators. It draws on the Global Pollination Project, supported by UNEP/GEF and implemented by FAO and seven partner countries (Brazil, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan and South Africa), which serve to provide "lessons from the field".
Part 1: Building the Knowledge Base on Pollination
1. Monitoring Pollinators around the World
Gretchen LeBuhn, Edward F. Connor, Marietta Brand, Jonathan F. Colville, Kedar Devkota, Resham Bahadur Thapa, Muo Kasina, Ravindra K Joshi, Kwame Aidoo, Peter Kwapong, Charles Annoh, Paul Bosu and Muhammad Khalid Rafique
2. Identifying and Assessing Pollination Deficits in Crops
Breno M. Freitas, Bernard E. Vaissière, Antonio Saraiva, Luísa G. Carvalheiro, Lucas A. Garibaldi and Hien Ngo
3. Incremental Contribution of Pollination and other Ecosystem Services to Agricultural Productivity: Effects of Service Quantity and Quality
Lucas A. Garibaldi, Marcelo A. Aizen, Saul A. Cunningham, Lawrence D. Harder and Alexandra M. Klein
4. Adaptation of an Economy Facing Pollinator Decline: A Prospective Analysis from the French Case
Nicola Gallai and Jean-Michel Salles
5. The Identification of Pollinators: Where are We and Where Should We Go?
Laurence Packer, Erica Ali, Sheila Dumesh and Ken Walker
6. Establishing Knowledge Management Systems for Ecological Interactions: The Case of Crop Pollinators
Luísa Gigante Carvalheiro, Antonio Mauro Saraiva and Tereza Cristina Giannini
7. Indigenous Knowledge, Local Communities and Pollination
Phrang Roy, Vanda Altarelli, Giulia Maria Baldinelli, Riccardo Bononi, Bryan Edmundo Rado Janzic and Ana Julia Vicente Taylor
Part 2: Adaptive Management of Pollination Services
8. Farm-tailored Measures to Sustain and Enhance Pollination Services
Rufus Isaacs, Brett Blaauw, Neal Williams, Peter Kwapong, Eric Lee-Mäder and Mace Vaughan
9. Developing Pollination Management Plans across Agricultural Landscapes: Quo Vadis, Sustainable Crop Pollination?
David Ward Roubik and Barbara Gemmill-Herren
Part 3: Mainstreaming Pollination Services
10. The Impacts of Agrochemical Pesticides on Bees in Intensively Cultivated Farmland
James Cresswell
11. Bumblebee Conservation Worldwide within the IUCN Framework
Edward Spevak, Sarina Jepson and Paul Williams
12. Global Public Awareness of Pollination and Pollinators: Recent Trends and Dynamics
Dino J. Martins, Mace Vaughan and Scott Hoffman Black
13. Developing Incentives for Farmers to Support Pollinators: Contrasting Approaches from Europe and the United States
Lynn Dicks, Mace Vaughan and Eric Lee-Mäder
14. Value of Pollination Services and Policy: The Missing Link
Almuhanad Melhim, Zach Daly and Alfons Weersink
15. Pollination and Evolving Global Policy Processes
Nadine Azzu, David Coates, Benjamin Graub and Barbara Gemmill-Herren
Barbara Gemmill-Herren was the Focal Point of the International Pollinator Initiative and Global Pollination Project Coordinator at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Rome, Italy, until she retired in 2015.
"[...] this book provides a valuable oversight of pollination services at a global level at a time of great interest in the topic."
– John Hopkins, BES Bulletin 48(2), July 2017
"This publication illustrates some of the impressive amount of work that has been carried out focusing on pollinators and pollination in recent years [...] I would like to encourage people to use this book as a reference not only for pollination, but as an example of how governments may mainstream ecosystem services critical to agriculture into National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans [...] "
– From the Foreword by Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity