INVESTIGADORES
AIZEN Marcelo Adrian
artículos
Título:
Long-term global trends in crop yield and production reveal no current pollination shortage but increasing pollinator dependency
Autor/es:
AIZEN, M.A., L.A. GARIBALDI, S.A. CUNNINGHAM Y A.M. KLEIN
Revista:
CURRENT BIOLOGY
Editorial:
CELL PRESS
Referencias:
Año: 2008 vol. 18 p. 1572 - 1575
ISSN:
0960-9822
Resumen:
There is evidence that pollinators are declining as a result of
local and global environmental degradation [14]. Because
a sizable proportion of the human diet depends directly or indirectly
on animal pollination [5], the issue of how decreases
in pollinator stocks could affect global crop production is of
paramount importance [68]. Using the extensive FAO data
set [9], we compared 45 year series (19612006) in yield,
and total production and cultivated area of pollinator-dependent
and nondependent crops [5]. We investigated temporal
trends separately for the developed and developing world
because differences in agricultural intensification, and socioeconomic
and environmental conditions might affect
yield and pollinators [1013]. Since 1961, crop yield (Mt/ha)
has increased consistently at average annual growth rates
of w1.5%. Temporal trends were similar between pollinator-
dependent and nondependent crops in both the developed
and developing world, thus not supporting the view
that pollinator shortages are affecting crop yield at the
global scale. We further report, however, that agriculture
has become more pollinator dependent because of a disproportionate
increase in the area cultivated with pollinatordependent
crops. If the trend toward favoring cultivation of
pollinator-dependent crops continues, the need for the service
provided by declining pollinators will greatly increase
in the near future.