CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND TO POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

EARDLEY, C.; FREITAS, B.; KEVAN, P.; RADER, R.; GIKUNGU, M.; KLEIN, A,; MELENDEZ RAMIREZ, V.; VERGARA, C.; WIANTORO, S.; CUNNINGHAM, S.A.; GALETTO, L.

The assessment report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on pollinators, pollination and food production. IPBES

Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,

Año: 2016; p. 1 - 25

Most of the world?s wild flowering plants (87.5%) arepollinated by insects and other animals (establishedbut incomplete), more than three quarters of theleading types of global food crops can benefit, atleast in part, from animal pollination (well established)and it is estimated that about one-third of globalfood volume produced similarly benefits from animalpollination (1.1). Pollination is an ecosystem function thatis fundamental to plant reproduction, agricultural productionand the maintenance of terrestrial biodiversity. Pollinationis the movement of pollen within or between flowers (i.e.,the transfer of pollen from an anther to a stigma) and is theprecursor to sexual fertilization that results in the productionof fruit and seed. Plants can be self-pollinated or pollinatedby wind, water, or animal vectors. Self-pollination occurswhen pollination happens within a single plant, sometimeswith the aid of animal pollinators but it may also occurwithout a vector. Cross-pollination is the movement ofpollen between different plants of the same species. Crosspollinationand self-pollination are not mutually exclusive;some plants have mixed pollination systems. Within thesemajor pollination mechanisms there are many variations.Some plants can even produce seeds or fruits withoutpollination or sexual fertilization. The level of dependenceof crops and wild flowers on pollination is highly variable(established but incomplete). Even within a single cropspecies, varieties may vary greatly in their dependenceupon pollination. Of the leading global crop types (i.e. oneor several similar crop species) that are directly consumedby humans and traded on the global market, 85% rely tovarying degrees upon animal pollination, while 7% are notdependent on animal pollination and 8% remain of unknowndependence. In terms of global production volumes, 60 percent of production comes from crops that do not dependon animal pollination (e.g., cereals and root crops), 35 percent of production comes from crops that depend at leastin part on animal pollination and 5 per cent have not beenevaluated (established but incomplete). In the absence ofanimal pollination, crop production would decrease by morethan 90 per cent in 12 per cent of the leading global crops,Moreover, 28 per cent of the crops would lose between40 and 90 per cent of production, whereas the 45 percent of the crops would lose between 1 and 40 per cent(established but incomplete). Of the world?s wild floweringplants, 87.5% are pollinated by insects and other animalsand most of the remainder use abiotic pollen vectors,mainly wind (established but incomplete). The complexitiesof plant-pollinator interactions, even in modern agriculturalecosystems, are poorly understood because usuallymore than one pollinator species is involved and they varybetween seasons and locality (established but incomplete)