POLLINATORS POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

THE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION
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4. ECONOMIC VALUATION OF POLLINATOR GAINS
AND LOSSES
Methods Affected: Yield Analysis (Section 2.2.1.),
Dependence Ratios (Section 2.2.2.), Production Functions
(Section 2.2.3.), Surplus Models (Section 2.4.).
Impacts: Coordinated management for multiple ecosystem
services can have positive synergistic effects, which can
outweigh the summed benefits of managing ecosystem
services that are spatially or temporally separate (Lundin et
al., 2013). Failure to adequately capture these trade-offs
will lead to an over-/under-attribute yield gains to pollination
services. Research that quantifies the provision of multiple
services, the trade-offs and synergies among them and
also examines the ecosystem processes that link services
will lead to a better understanding of how the relationships
among ecosystem services can change over time and
space (e.g., Marini et al., 2015). Such understanding
may enable manipulation of systems to decrease tradeoffs,
enhance synergisms, and promote resilience and
sustainable use of ecosystem services (Volk, 2013).
5.2.3.3 How do pollination services affect the
benefits of other ecosystem services?
Although pollination is a service that results from direct
interactions between plants and animals, because of its
reproductive value to plants it also has an important, indirect
role in other vegetation-based services, such as water
filtration, erosion control, carbon storage and sequestration
(Montoya et al., 2012) and landscape aesthetics (Breeze
et al., 2015). The total value of insect pollinators to crop
FIGURE 4.4
Interaction web showing the pathway by which fish facilitate plant reproduction.
production would be even higher if indirect benefits, such
as enhanced soil fertility and soil conservation through
the pollination of various nitrogen-fixing legumes and
replenishing soil nutrients, were taken into account (Partap
et al., 2014).
For example, the total value of insect pollinators to
agriculture would be even higher if economic risks of both
direct crop sectors and indirect non-crop sectors in the
economy were taken into account (Bauer and Wing, 2014).
Perhaps the most drastic effects would be in uncultivated
areas where a large share of the soil-holding and soilenriching
plants would die out (Bohart, 1952).
Methods Affected: Yield Analysis (Section 2.2.1.),
Dependence Ratios (Section 2.2.2.), Production Functions
(Section 2.2.3.), Surplus Models (Section 2.4.), Stated
Preferences (Section 2.5.)
Impacts: Like farm management practices, failure to
account for the interaction between pollination and other
ecosystem services can result in under- or over-estimation
of the benefits of pollination services, especially for crops
that are highly self-incompatible. In order to assess total
economic value, it is important to quantify the various nonmarket
benefits of pollination services. In order to do so,
the contribution of pollination services to various benefits
provided by other, intangible ecosystem services must be
quantified to accurately extrapolate the value of pollination
to these final services via stated preferences or production
Solid arrows indicate direct interactions; dashed arrows denote indirect interactions. The sign refers to the expected direction of the
direct or indirect effect (modified from Knight et al., 2005).
Dragonfly
–
Pollinator
+
+
–
+
+
–
Fish
Aquatic habitat
Terrestrial habitat