Ecological intensification to mitigate impacts of conventional intensive land use on pollinators and pollination

• Published in: Ecology letters Vol. 20; no. 5; pp. 673 - 689
• Main Authors: Kovács‐Hostyánszki, Anikó, Espíndola, Anahí, Vanbergen, Adam J., Settele, Josef, Kremen, Claire, Dicks, Lynn V., Irwin, Rebecca
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.05.2017; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Abundance; Agricultural land; Agricultural policy; Agricultural practices; Agricultural production; Agriculture; Animals; Biodiversity; Biota; Conservation of Natural Resources; Conversion; Crop production; Crop rotation; Crops, Agricultural - physiology; diversification; Ecology; Ecosystems; Farming; Farms; Food; food security; grazing/mowing intensity; habitat loss; Human influences; Industrial management; Insecta - physiology; Intercropping; Land use; Land use management; Landscape; landscape fragmentation; mass‐flowering crops; Monoculture; Nesting; Plant communities; Plant reproduction; Pollination; Pollinators; Review and Synthesis; Strategic management; Sustainable agriculture; wild pollinator diversity; landscape fragmentation; habitat loss; Crop production; wild pollinator diversity; food security; diversification; mass-flowering crops; grazing/mowing intensity
• ISSN: 1461-023X; 1461-0248
• DOI: 10.1111/ele.12762

Worldwide, human appropriation of ecosystems is disrupting plant–pollinator communities and pollination function through habitat conversion and landscape homogenisation. Conversion to agriculture is destroying and degrading semi‐natural ecosystems while conventional land‐use intensification (e.g. industrial management of large‐scale monocultures with high chemical inputs) homogenises landscape structure and quality. Together, these anthropogenic processes reduce the connectivity of populations and erode floral and nesting resources to undermine pollinator abundance and diversity, and ultimately pollination services. Ecological intensification of agriculture represents a strategic alternative to ameliorate these drivers of pollinator decline while supporting sustainable food production, by promoting biodiversity beneficial to agricultural production through management practices such as intercropping, crop rotations, farm‐level diversification and reduced agrochemical use. We critically evaluate its potential to address and reverse the land use and management trends currently degrading pollinator communities and potentially causing widespread pollination deficits. We find that many of the practices that constitute ecological intensification can contribute to mitigating the drivers of pollinator decline. Our findings support ecological intensification as a solution to pollinator declines, and we discuss ways to promote it in agricultural policy and practice.