Publications

A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production

Dainese, Matteo; Martin, Emily A.; Aizen, Marcelo A.; Albrecht, Matthias; Bartomeus, Ignasi; Bommarco, Riccardo; Carvalheiro, Luisa G.; Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca; Gagic, Vesna; Garibaldi, Lucas A.; Ghazoul, Jaboury; Grab, Heather; Jonsson, Mattias; Karp, Daniel S.; Kennedy, Christina M.; Kleijn, David; Kremen, Claire; Landis, Douglas A.; Letourneau, Deborah K.; Marini, Lorenzo; Poveda, Katja; Rader, Romina; Smith, Henrik G.; Tscharntke, Teja; Andersson, Georg K.S.; Badenhausser, Isabelle; Baensch, Svenja; Bezerra, Antonio D.M.; Bianchi, Felix J.J.A.; Boreux, Virginie; Bretagnolle, Vincent; Caballero-Lopez, Berta; Cavigliasso, Pablo; Ćetković, Aleksandar; Chacoff, Natacha P.; Classen, Alice; Cusser, Sarah; Silva E Silva, Felipe D. Da; Groot, G.A. de; Dudenhöffer, Jan H.; Ekroos, Johan; Fijen, Thijs; Franck, Pierre; Freitas, Breno M.; Garratt, Michael P.D.; Gratton, Claudio; Hipólito, Juliana; Holzschuh, Andrea; Hunt, Lauren; Iverson, Aaron L.; Jha, Shalene; Keasar, Tamar; Kim, Tania N.; Kishinevsky, Miriam; Klatt, Björn K.; Klein, Alexandra Maria; Krewenka, Kristin M.; Krishnan, Smitha; Larsen, Ashley E.; Lavigne, Claire; Liere, Heidi; Maas, Bea; Mallinger, Rachel E.; Pachon, Eliana Martinez; Martínez-Salinas, Alejandra; Meehan, Timothy D.; Mitchell, Matthew G.E.; Molina, Gonzalo A.R.; Nesper, Maike; Nilsson, Lovisa; O'Rourke, Megan E.; Peters, Marcell K.; Plećaš, Milan; Potts, Simon G.; L. Ramos, Davi de; Rosenheim, Jay A.; Rundlöf, Maj; Rusch, Adrien; Sáez, Agustín; Scheper, Jeroen; Schleuning, Matthias; Schmack, Julia M.; Sciligo, Amber R.; Seymour, Colleen; Stanley, Dara A.; Stewart, Rebecca; Stout, Jane C.; Sutter, Louis; Takada, Mayura B.; Taki, Hisatomo; Tamburini, Giovanni; Tschumi, Matthias; Viana, Blandina F.; Westphal, Catrin; Willcox, Bryony K.; Wratten, Stephen D.; Yoshioka, Akira; Zaragoza-Trello, Carlos; Zhang, Wei; Zou, Yi; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf

Summary

Human land use threatens global biodiversity and compromises multiple ecosystem functions critical to food production. Whether crop yield-related ecosystem services can be maintained by a few dominant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), we partition the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for pollination; biological pest control; and final yields in the context of ongoing land-use change. Pollinator and enemy richness directly supported ecosystem services in addition to and independent of abundance and dominance. Up to 50% of the negative effects of landscape simplification on ecosystem services was due to richness losses of service-providing organisms, with negative consequences for crop yields. Maintaining the biodiversity of ecosystem service providers is therefore vital to sustain the flow of key agroecosystem benefits to society.