Fruit set of highland coffee increases with the diversity of pollinating bees

By Alexandra-Maria Klein, I. Steffan‐Dewenter, T. Tscharntke. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 2003

812 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The worldwide decline of pollinators may negatively affect the fruit set of wild and cultivated plants. Here, we show that fruit set of the self–fertilizing highland coffee (Coffea arabica) is highly variable and related to bee pollination. In a comparison of 24 agroforestry systems in Indonesia, the fruit set of coffee could be predicted by the number of flower–visiting bee species, and it ranged from ca. 60% (three species) to 90% (20 species). Diversity, not abundance, explained variation in fruit set, so the collective role of a species–rich bee community was important for pollination success. Additional experiments showed that single flower visits from rare solitary species led to higher fruit set than with abundant social species. Pollinator diversity was affected by two habitat parameters indicating guild–specific nesting requirements: the diversity of social bees decreased with forest distance, whereas the diversity of solitary bees increased with light intensity of the agroforestry systems. These results give empirical evidence for a positive relationship between ecosystem functions such as pollination and biodiversity. Conservation of rainforest adjacent to adequately managed agroforestry systems could improve the yields of farmers.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Insect Science, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fa28183555e1f4d3a59dbbb49859d128d1f9d0c3

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Citations in the corpus

BIODIVERSITY INDICATOR GROUPS OF TROPICAL LAND‐USE SYSTEMS: COMPARING PLANTS, BIRDS, AND INSECTS (2004, background): “It can be expected that species richness of all studied groups may further decline with increasing isolation from remaining areas of old-grown forest (as shown for bees and wasps in the study area, Klein et al. 2003, 2004).”
Foraging behavior and pollinating effectiveness of Osmia cornuta (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) and Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae) on “Comice” pear (2004, background): “Recent studies have discussed the possibility that a diverse pollinator assemblage contributes to overall pollination in more ways than just by increasing pollinator abundance (Klein et al., 2003).”
Factors affecting bee communities in forest openings and adjacent mature forest (2017, background): “There are over 4000 species of native bees in North America (Cane and Tepedino, 2001), which contribute significantly to the pollination of both native plants and crops (Klein et al., 2003; Winfree et al., 2007a, 2008).”
Plant-insect interactions in fragmented landscapes. (2004, background): “Hence, local factors (such as local management practices) and regional factors (such as distance to high-diversity habitats) determine local biodiversity (75, 79, 84, 85, 123, 139, 141).”
Wild Pollinators Enhance Fruit Set of Crops Regardless of Honey Bee Abundance (2013, neutral): “Coffee highland (A) (48, 49) Klein, aklein@uni.”
On the relationship between farmland biodiversity and land-use intensity in Europe (2009, background): “…suggest that more diverse communities of pollinators may provide more efficient pollination services and economic benefits (e.g. Kremen et al. 2002; Klein et al. 2003a,b; Albrecht et al. 2007), and that the provision of these pollination services declines with increasing land-use intensity (e.g.…”
Pollen transport differs among bees and flies in a human‐modified landscape (2011, background): “Although several studies have focused on native bees (Klein et al., 2003; Kremen et al., 2004; Blanche et al., 2006; Greenleaf & Kremen, 2006; Klein et al., 2007, Winfree et al., 2007, 2008; Zurbuchen et al., 2010a,b) and specialist and/or rare pollinators of conservation significance (Kwak et al.,…”
Pollination services for apple are dependent on diverse wild bee communities (2016, background): “There is a growing consensus that biodiversity enhances ecosystem function in general (Hooper et al., 2005) and the delivery of the ecosystem service of pollination in particular (Kremen et al., 2002; Klein et al., 2003; Hoehn et al., 2008).”
Confounding factors in the detection of species responses to habitat fragmentation (2005, background): “However, habitat loss and fragmentation can significantly alter the nature of invertebrate pollinator communities and disrupt plant-pollinator interactions (Rathcke & Jules, 1993; Klein et al., 2003).”
Why biodiversity is important to the functioning of real‐world ecosystems (2009, background): “(a) Crop pollination is often more effective in areas with higher native bee diversity (Klein et al. 2003).”
Stability of pollination services decreases with isolation from natural areas despite honey bee visits. (2011, background): “…arabica A. mellifera, stingless bees (Meliponini) No, yes 40 Tropical, premontane moist forest 3–1392 Costa Rica 20, 5–9 trees 28, 5 Coffee (C) lowland Klein et al. 2003b Coffea canephora Apis spp., Trigona spp., Halictidae, solitary bees No, no 0 Tropical rain forest 0–1415 Indonesia, Sulawesi…”