Abundance of common species, not species richness, drives delivery of a real-world ecosystem service.

By R. Winfree, J. Fox, N. Williams, James R. Reilly, Daniel P. Cariveau. Ecology Letters, 2015

598 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c9df41935db823e168a093e245c360921297a95f

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Pollination by wild bees yields larger strawberries than pollination by honey bees (2019, background): “In real- world systems, the dominant pollinator species may have more influence on pollen deposition and fruit and seed yields (Genung et al., 2017; Winfree et al., 2015).”
Interpreting insect declines: seven challenges and a way forward (2020, background): “…species can be of great conservation significance, they might tend to have relatively little functional significance (in terms of contribution to ecosystem services such as pollination, pest control and so on), compared with abundant species (e.g., Winfree et al., 2015; but see Dee et al., 2019).”
Protecting an ecosystem service: approaches to understanding and mitigating threats to wild insect pollinators (2016, background): “877 878 We can start by first targeting research to help conserve key species or groups that 879 provide a highly valued pollinator service (Kleijn et al., 2015, Winfree et al., 2015).”
Natural land cover drives pollinator abundance and richness, leading to reductions in pollen limitation in cotton agroecosystems (2016, background): “While recent studies suggest that a few dominant species conduct the majority of the pollination services (Kleijn et al., 2015; Winfree et al., 2015), we posit that diversity may be particularly important in systems where flowering can vary substantially across years and where one of the most stable”
Semi‐natural habitats mitigate the effects of temperature rise on wild bees (2017, background): “2015) and their abundance (Winfree et al. 2015), species-rich pollinator communities can still enhance crop pollination (Garibaldi et al.”
A quantitative review of abundance-based species distribution models (2021, background): “Winfree et al. (2015) found that, in real-world ecosystems, crop pollination was driven by abundance fluctuations of dominant bee species whereas species richness was driven by rare species that contributed little to ecosystem function.”
Pollination reservoirs for wild bee habitat enhancement in cropping systems: a review (2017, background): “…et al. 2015; 3Wildflower plantings increase visitation rates to crops (Feltham et al. 2015) and pollinator abundance increases pollination services (Winfree et al. 2015); 4Winfree et al. 2007; 5Greenleaf and Kremen 2006b; 6Winfree and Kremen 2009, M’Gonigle et al. 2015; 7Greenleaf and Kremen…”
Structural diversity as a predictor of ecosystem function (2019, background): “…of species richness and phylogenetic diversity as proxies for niche space might be responsible for their low predictive ability and inconsistent diversity-ecosystem function relationships (hereafter referred to as D-EF) observed across various studies (Winfree et al 2015, Turnbull et al 2016).”
Insect Declines in the Anthropocene. (2020, background): “While the loss of species is both grievous and ethically unconscionable for those with a love for nature, it is not extinction but the population declines of abundant species that will have the most serious ecological consequences for planetary health and function: Abundant species tether food webs,”