POLLINATORS POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

THE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION
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6. RESPONSES TO RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES ASSOCIATED
WITH POLLINATORS AND POLLINATION
interaction, are affected by soil and weather conditions (see
Chapter 3). Liss et al. (2013) found considerable variation
in how the pollination is defined (linguistic uncertainty) and
measured (scientific uncertainty), and recommended that
pollination measurements and metrics are explicitly clarified
(reducing linguistic and scientific uncertainties).
Finally, the effects of organic farming on pollinators (see
section 6.4.1.1.4) look different if you take the view that wild
nature beyond farmland has a higher value than farmland
biodiversity, or overall food production at a large scale is
more important than local impacts, because organic farms
tend to have lower yields than conventional farms. Debates
around organic farming are therefore subject to uncertainty
that comes from confusing reasoning, an element of
differences in understanding of the world.
6.7 TRADE-OFFS AND
SYNERGIES IN DECISIONS
ABOUT POLLINATION
This section reviews what is known about trade-offs and
synergies among responses or policy options related to
pollinators and pollination. A trade-off is considered as the
simultaneous enhancement of one aspect of pollination and
the reduction in other ecosystem services or another aspect
of pollination. Synergy here is when two or more services,
or aspects of pollination, are concurrently enhanced by
the same action. Trade-offs and synergies need to be
understood and acknowledged at all steps of the decisionmaking
process about pollination and food production.
6.7.1 Trade-offs and synergies
between pollination and other
ecosystem services
Ecosystem services and pollination encompass various
natural processes and are surrounded by sociological
systems, so trade-offs and synergies between them need
to be well thought out. For instance, actions to maximize
crop pollination and conservation of culturally important
pollinators may be in conflict with the other. Research
analyzing how a single focused response affects tradeoffs
and synergies among pollination and other ecosystem
services, as well as the economic costs and benefits, should
be considered. For example, Kleijn et al. (2015) recently
demonstrated that simple actions such as planting flowers
to support crop pollinators (see section 6.4.1.1.1) do not
necessarily also support declining or specialised species
of wild bee. They suggest that managing for pollinator
diversity requires different actions, more focused on habitat
protection or restoration.
It is important to understand whether multiple ecosystem
services changing together are responding to the same
driver or interacting with each other (Bennett et al., 2009).
It is also necessary to consider trade-offs and synergies
among sectors, stakeholders, or constituents because each
ecosystem service is used differently by diverse groups
of humans.
Several reviews and meta-analyses have examined the
trade-offs and synergies among multiple ecosystem
services alongside pollination. Reviews have indicated
that the creation and conservation of pollinator habitats,
such as biologically diverse faming systems in agricultural
landscapes, can enhance biodiversity and several
ecosystem services such as natural pest control, soil and
water quality, and rural aesthetics (Kremen and Miles, 2012;
Wratten et al., 2012). In coffee and cacao agroforestry
systems, it has been shown that the presence of shade
trees, which enhances the presence of pollinators, could
lead to synergies such as pest control (Tscharntke et al.,
2011). Natural habitats provide pollinator habitats and
facilitate the movement of organisms that can be providers
of other ecosystem services (Mitchell et al., 2013). In a
meta-analysis, Shackelford et al. (2013) compared the
abundance and richness of pollinators and natural enemies
in agricultural landscapes and found that some pollinators
and natural enemies seem to have synergetic responses,
although the evidence is limited. An investigation of the
relationship between the genetic diversity of crops and
the delivery of ecosystem services implied that increasing
crop genetic diversity was useful in pest and disease
management, and might have the potential to enhance
pollination (Hajjar et al., 2008). Breeding crops to reduce
pollinator dependence (see section 6.4.1.1.11) could reduce
production uncertainty or instability in the short term, but
this can reduce overall crop genetic diversity, thus increasing
potential vulnerability to pests and diseases (Esquinas-
Alcázar, 2005).
A case study on a Cordia alliodora plantation in Ecuador
indicated that economic trade-offs do not necessarily occur
among timber provision, regulation of carbon dioxide, and
pollination of adjacent coffee crops with moderate silvicultural
interventions (Olschewski et al., 2010). A modeling study
in the United States indicated trade-offs between income
provision and other ecosystem services, including pollination,
when replacing annual energy crops with perennial energy
crops (Meehan et al., 2013). Several spatially explicit
frameworks to investigate the trade-offs of multiple
ecosystem services, with pollination estimated mainly by the
proxy of natural vegetation, found both negative and positive
correlations between pollination and other ecosystem
services. Pollination was weakly negatively correlated with
forage production, and weakly positively correlated with
carbon storage and water provision in the United States
(Chan et al., 2006). Positive relationships of pollination and