Introduction to Special Issue of the Journal of Pollination Ecology on Crop Pollination Deficits

Abstract

While it is well recognised that pollination is an ecosystem service of vital importance to human well-being through its role in food production, it is still remarkable how little is known, on a crop-by-crop basis, about this role, and the extent and causes of declines in the service. Without better documentation of the specific contribution of pollination to crop yields, there have been mounting - and justified - questions about how relevant pollination may be to agricultural development and food security. In addition, the vast majority of studies of pollination services to crops have been carried out in Europe and North America; and certainly the problems we know to impact pollinators most severely – a high dependence on agricultural chemicals and monocropped landscapes offering little diet diversity to pollinators – are typical features of industrialised, Northern hemisphere agriculture.