Caring for Pollinators - Bundesamt für Naturschutz

Steffan-Dewenter Pollinator declines and loss of pollination services
Consequences of pollinator declines for crop pollination
In a recently published review on the “Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for
world crops” by Alexandra Klein from the University of Göttingen and coauthors we evaluate
the reliance of world crop production on animal pollination based on primary data from 200
countries (Klein et al. 2007). We found that fruit, vegetable or seed production from 87 of the
leading global food crops is dependent upon animal pollination, while 28 crops do not rely
upon animal pollination. Pollinators turned out to be essential for 13 crops, while production
is highly pollinator dependent for 30, moderately for 27, slightly for 21, unimportant for 7, and
is of unknown significance for the remaining 9 crop species.
In the context of the EU-project ALARM we performed collaborative crop studies in five
different countries with a focus on annual field crops (Figure 4). Crop fields were studied
along gradients of increasing land use intensification to evaluate the possible loss of
pollination services in monotonous agricultural landscapes without source habitats for
pollinators (Figure 3). The data indicate that lower visitation rates in such landscapes result
not only in lower yields but also negatively affect yield quality (Bommarco et al., submitted).
Further, Bernard Vaissère and coworkers from INRA Avignon assessed the monetary value
of insect pollinators in Europe. The total economic production value of 80 crops used directly
for human food was 127.7 billion € in 2005. 41 of these crops depend or benefit from insect
pollination for their production resulting in an estimated annual economic value of pollinators
in Europe of 12.3 billion € (Gallai et al. 2008).
Fig. 4: Collaborative crop studies in 5 countries performed in the framework of the EU-project
ALARM
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