Economic and ecological implications of geographic bias in pollinator ecology in the light of pollinator declines
By C. R. Archer, C. Pirk, L. Carvalheiro, S. Nicolson. 2014
114 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Understanding the causes and consequences of pollinator declines is a priority in ecological research. However, across much of the globe we have a poor understanding of pollinator assemblages, population trends and the ecological and economic importance of particular pollinators, due to a marked geographic bias in research eff ort. Here, we show that almost half the data cited in thirteen recent meta-analyses, which ask important and diverse questions in pollination ecology, were collected in just fi ve countries: Australia, Brazil, Germany, Spain and the USA. In contrast, the entire continent of Africa contributed only 4% of the data. We believe that the consequences of this geographic bias are severe. Foremost, pollinator assemblages (and possibly their sensitivity to ecological drivers) can greatly vary among these regions. In addition, many communities that rely on pollinators, bees in particular, for food security and wealth generation are in geographic regions where our understanding of pollination is poor. Collecting accurate information on pollinator populations in data defi cient areas will allow us to identify vulnerable populations and species and so better target conservation measures. Moreover, it will help us to determine if our current understanding of pollinator losses, based on data collected in a few locations and on the species that predominate in those regions, is representative of the wide diversity of ecosystems. We propose means of collecting such data given socioeconomic constraints.
Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics, Insect Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2e11a288dcec116d0d04b6c77346a1f2875ede5b
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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
In Genetics
In Insect Science
Citations in the corpus
- Insect pollinators collect pollen from wind‐pollinated plants: implications for pollination ecology and sustainable agriculture (2018, background): “…of human pressures, particularly habitat loss through land use intensification, and there is an urgent need for research and management programmes that enhance pollinator populations (Potts et al., 2010; Vanbergen et al., 2013; Archer et al., 2014; Goulson et al., 2015; Manley et al., 2015).”
- Insect Declines in the Anthropocene. (2020, background): “Bees anchor the Earth’s pollination services and are essential for food security and global economies (1, 61, 94, 101, 126, 135).”