While an increasing number of studies indicate that therange, diversity and abundance of many wild pollinatorshas declined, the global area of pollinator-dependent cropshas significantly increased over the last few decades. Croppollination studies to date have mainly focused on eitheridentifying different guilds pollinating various crops, oron factors driving spatial changes and turnover observedin these communities. The mechanisms driving temporalstability for ecosystem functioning and services, however,remain poorly understood. Our study quantifies temporalvariability observed in crop pollinators in 21 differentcrops across multiple years at a global scale. Using datafrom 43 studies from six continents, we show that(i) higher pollinator diversity confers greater inter-annualstability in pollinator communities, (ii) temporal variationobserved in pollinator abundance is primarily drivenby the three-most dominant species, and (iii) crops in tro-pical regions demonstrate higher inter-annual variabilityin pollinator species richness than crops in temperateregions. We highlight the importance of recognizingwild pollinator diversity in agricultural landscapes tostabilize pollinator persistence across years to protectboth biodiversity and crop pollination services. Short-term agricultural management practices aimed atdominant species for stabilizing pollination services needto be considered alongside longer term conservationgoals focussed on maintaining and facilitating biodiversityto confer ecological stability.
Wild insect diversity increases inter-annual stability in global crop pollinator communities
Year: 2021
