![]() ![]() These systems are typically managed uniformly (e.g., moderate rotational grazing) to increase gains per unit land area and result in homogenize vegetation. Agroecosystems encompass a wide variety of land covers that produce food, fiber, and fuel, including croplands, grasslands, pasturelands, and woodlands ( Kremen and Merenlender 2018). Due to the needs of feeding a growing population, humans have converted natural landscapes to agroecosystems to provide more food and fiber ( DeFries et al. ![]() Land use change has the capacity to greatly reduce suitable habitat for pollinators and, therefore, lead to reductions in BEF and BES ( Cardinale et al. Together, these statistics suggest declines in pollination services pose a threat to global food security, environmental quality, and economic interests. 2011), and these services have been conservatively valued at US$215 billion globally ( Vanbergen et al. Overall, animals are responsible for pollinating over 85% of flowering plants worldwide ( Ollerton et al. Similarly, pollinators are critical in natural systems to pollinate non-crop species and maintain diverse plant populations ( Williams and Winfree 2013). Pollinators are beneficial for approximately 75% of global crop species ( Klein et al. 2013), but their pollination services are critical for both the success of agriculture and the persistence of diverse, natural ecosystems. Pollinators are declining worldwide ( Vanbergen et al. One such group of service-providing organisms in need of detailed study are insect pollinators, since they are vital for global food security but often suffer from land use changes and biodiversity losses. However, continued research into these connections is critical because biodiversity can imply different metrics, including richness, evenness, or functional diversity, and causal relationships for BEF and BES can be complicated by multiple factors, such as landscape context ( Meli et al. Connections between biodiversity and ecosystem functions (BEF) and biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES) are well established (e.g., Quijas et al. 2004), typically at the expense of biodiversity ( Kremen and Merenlender 2018, WWF 2018). To improve the capacity to provide more resources, natural ecosystems are modified and management in agroecosystems is intensified ( DeFries et al. The increasing human population demands more food and resources to meet consumption needs ( Allendorf and Allendorf 2012, United Nations 2019), while extreme weather events are reducing the capacity of current agroecosystems to sustainably meet those demands ( Ehrlich and Harte 2015). ![]() Increasing plant species richness through management changes or restorations will likely increase pollinator richness and be beneficial in agroecosystems to support biodiversity.Ĭhanges to the global environment, including human population growth, weather patterns, and land use practices, have deleterious effects on biodiversity and subsequent ecosystem functions and services ( Cardinale et al. Additional studies in regions such as Africa and South America will help fill in latitudinal gradients and provide greater coverage necessary to refine patterns. However, we found pollinators in manipulated studies did not consistently respond to increasing plant species richness despite the overall positive relationships in observational and experimental studies, highlighting the importance of plant selection when making management decisions aiming to improve pollinator richness. We found most groups of insect pollinators, including bees, butterflies, flies, moths, and wasps, responded positively to increasing plant species richness, irrespective of location or land use, suggesting the capacity to increase pollinator richness through management strategies that increase plant species richness. We conducted a meta-analysis with 109 studies to examine the relationship between plant species richness and pollinator species richness to determine whether higher plant species richness supports higher pollinator species richness, especially in areas prone to biodiversity losses. Conserving biodiversity will be necessary to create sustainable agroecosystems capable of optimizing both production and services such as pollination. These patterns may be exacerbated by the intensification of management in agroecosystems, as management to meet the increasing demand for food, fuel, and fiber often comes at the cost of biodiversity and subsequent ecosystem functions and services. Global biodiversity declines are attributed to many factors, including landscape fragmentation and vegetation homogenization. ![]()
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