How much does agriculture depend on pollinators? Lessons from long-term trends in crop production
How much does agriculture depend on pollinators? Lessons from long-term trends in crop production
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DOI：
10.1093/aob/mcp076
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发表时间：
2009-06-01
期刊：
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Klein, Alexandra M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Aizen, Marcelo A.;Garibaldi, Lucas A.;Klein, Alexandra M.
许多作物的生产力受益于授粉昆虫的存在，因此授粉昆虫丰度的下降应该会危及全球农业生产。由于缺乏对这一威胁规模的准确估计，我们量化了传粉媒介的全部损失对全球农业生产和作物生产多样性的影响。此外，还评估了发达国家和发展中国家46年来对传粉媒介依赖性的变化。利用粮农组织的广泛数据集，对1961-2006年87种重要作物的产量和种植面积进行了年度数据汇编，我们将其分为5类传粉媒介依赖性。基于差异传粉者依赖性的总体效应的措施，传粉者的完全损失在农业总产量和多样性方面的减少的后果进行了计算。此外，还估算了在没有传粉媒介的情况下，为补偿每一种作物产量下降所需增加的总耕地面积，在没有动物授粉的情况下，预计农业总产量将直接减少3%至8%，对农业生产多样性的影响较小。弥补这些不足所需的耕地面积增加百分比要高出数倍，特别是在发展中国家，这些国家占全球作物种植面积的三分之二。产量增长较低的作物往往在耕地面积上有较大的扩展。随着时间的推移，农业已经变得更加依赖授粉者，这种趋势在发展中国家比发达国家更加明显。我们认为，授粉短缺将加剧对农业用地的需求，这一趋势在发展中国家将更加明显。对农业用地供应的这种日益增加的压力可能会大大促进全球环境变化。
Productivity of many crops benefits from the presence of pollinating insects, so a decline in pollinator abundance should compromise global agricultural production. Motivated by the lack of accurate estimates of the size of this threat, we quantified the effect of total loss of pollinators on global agricultural production and crop production diversity. The change in pollinator dependency over 46 years was also evaluated, considering the developed and developing world separately.Using the extensive FAO dataset, yearly data were compiled for 1961-2006 on production and cultivated area of 87 important crops, which we classified into five categories of pollinator dependency. Based on measures of the aggregate effect of differential pollinator dependence, the consequences of a complete loss of pollinators in terms of reductions in total agricultural production and diversity were calculated. An estimate was also made of the increase in total cultivated area that would be required to compensate for the decrease in production of every single crop in the absence of pollinators.The expected direct reduction in total agricultural production in the absence of animal pollination ranged from 3 to 8 %, with smaller impacts on agricultural production diversity. The percentage increase in cultivated area needed to compensate for these deficits was several times higher, particularly in the developing world, which comprises two-thirds of the land devoted to crop cultivation globally. Crops with lower yield growth tended to have undergone greater expansion in cultivated area. Agriculture has become more pollinator-dependent over time, and this trend is more pronounced in the developing than developed world.We propose that pollination shortage will intensify demand for agricultural land, a trend that will be more pronounced in the developing world. This increasing pressure on supply of agricultural land could significantly contribute to global environmental change.