It’s known that intensive agriculture drives insect decline. This is a major concern because many insects, especially pollinators like bees and butterflies, play a crucial role in maintaining healthy insect-mediated ecosystems that support production. Crop diversification shows promise in increasing crop productivity and enhancing ecosystem services. However, the impact on biodiversity conservation, particularly of pollinators, is unclear. RestPoll researcher Julia Osterman contributed to a new publication about this subject.
A closer look at crop diversification
This new review examines how increasing the variety of crops across fields and over time might help pollinators. The research mainly focuses on highly intensive farming areas in Western Europe and North America, where pollinator decline is well-documented. Insights from tropical farming practices also offer valuable perspectives as well.
Key findings: how crop diversity supports pollinators
Crop diversification can support pollinators through four mechanisms: increasing resource availability, increasing flower resource continuity, spatial availability and increased landscape connectivity.
The study gives examples on crop diversification practices and how they can support pollinators such as:
- More flowering crops and increasing cultivar diversity: growing crops that bloom at different times ensures that pollinators have access to food throughout their active seasons.
- Intercropping and woody crops: planting different species together and incorporating trees or shrubs increases (spatial) flower availability and habitat diversity. This can be achieved by growing forgotten crops or novel flowering crops.
- Smaller fields and varied landscapes: reducing field size and increasing plant variety make it easier for pollinators to move between resources.
The future: what still needs to be studied
While crop diversification shows promise, the study also points out its limitations. Not all pollinator species will benefit equally, and more large-scale research is needed to understand the full impact. Landscape-wide studies can help determine if diversification can truly reverse pollinator decline on a larger scale and barriers such as lack of crop management knowledge, lack of seed or machinery availability or increased production costs need to be overcome.
Conclusion
This review reinforces the idea that crop diversification can be part of the solution for pollinator conservation, without requiring farmland to be taken out of production. Further research is essential to fully understand how different species respond and to create effective strategies for sustainable agriculture.
Do you want to read the whole publication? Read it on Springer.
Do you want to read more RestPoll publications? Take a look at our (revised!) publications page.
This research is co-funded by RestPoll.
