Ecological intensification for global food security: diverse fauna close yield gaps in small holdings of Africa, Asia, and Latin America

GARIBALDI, LUCAS A.

Ribeirão Preto

Congreso; Simpósio: Abelhas e Mudanças Climáticas: impactos e mitigação, XI Encontro sobre Abelhas; 2015

Closing gaps in crop yield while enhancing sustainability is one of the greatest challenges for achieving food security. Ecological intensification, the improvement of crop yield through ecosystem services, has been proposed as a sustainable pathway. However, data supporting such an approach are missing, especially for two billion small holders, many of which are undernourished. Hence, we quantified how crop yield varies with pollination services (flower-visitor density) through the same, coordinated protocol on 326 fields from 34 pollinator-dependent crop systems in small and large holdings of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We found that 0-54% of yield gaps could be closed through higher flower-visitor density, depending on the crop system. Yield gaps can be closed to a higher degree for smaller holdings (19?54% for <2ha fields), and when honeybee dominance is lower (higher evenness). Therefore, ecological intensification creates win-win scenarios between wild biota and crop yield for small holdings worldwide.