Pollinators provide enhanced fruit and seed production for roughly 35% of global crop production and 75% of crop types. Wild pollinator populations are currently suffering from habitat loss, while semi-domesticated pollinators, particularly the most widely used crop pollinator, the European honey bee, are declining in North America and Europe due to diseases, pesticides and unknown causes. These losses have reached critical proportions in some areas. As pollination services decline, human diets could become impoverished in fruits and vegetables that provide us with essential vitamins and micro-nutrients. Wild plant populations that depend on pollinators for reproduction (the majority of flowering plants) may also suffer, with potential cascading effects on other wildlife. This research will utilize a multi-pronged approach to understand how the distribution of habitat patches in a landscape can support wild pollinator communities in agricultural regions and thus ensure the continued delivery of pollination services to crops. This comprehensive approach includes field observations and experiments in the Central Valley of California, development of mathematical models for understanding pollination services across space, and application of these models to pollination studies from around the globe.
The increased understanding of pollination services can benefit society by identifying pathways for restoring a diverse community of pollinators to agriculture, and thus helping to reduce the risk of over-reliance on honey bees as a critical input to agricultural production. This research will also contribute to the fundamental understanding of the relationship between changing habitat distributions at the landscape scale and the ecosystem services they produce. Three postdoctoral scientists will be mentored and trained in this project, along with numerous undergraduate students. Results will contribute to public outreach through interactions with the Xerces Society which works with farmers in California and across the U.S. to conserve native pollinator communities to benefit agriculture. Additional outreach will be conducted through the Lincoln Park Zoo in Illinois to increase participation in a citizen science pollination program.
