Bee conservation and pollination service provision: using a landscape approach to reach a common goal

Abstract

Landscape management focused on improving the provision of ecosystem services to increase crop yield does not guarantee the conservation of biodiversity, as a small species pool can provide services. However, the provision of ecosystem services is usually considered at local scales while the conservation of biodiversity depends on larger, regional scales of habitat availability. Here we intent to understand first the capacity of forest fragments to provide pollination service and at the same time conserve biodiversity by analysing the landscape configuration at a larger scale. Our study system will be the whole Atlantic forest biome, considering coffee crop and pollination service at a biome level for the first time. Through this analysis, we wish to assess the relative weight of pollinators' richness on pollination service and crop yields. Second, we aim to identify, at the biome level, whether priority forest fragments for biodiversity conservation protect high pollinator richness and contribute to higher coffee yields. Third we will assess how climate change will impact pollinators' distribution and coffee suitability, and how this affect the location of priority areas that can guarantee the supply and provision of pollinator and pollination service provision in the future. To estimate pollination service contribution to coffee yields at the biome level independently of other environmental variables, we will consider land use and land cover maps to calculate landscape configuration and composition of the coffee fields and their surroundings at the municipality level to compare with the productivity of the two coffee species which have differences in pollination dependency. To test whether priority forest fragments can provide high pollinator richness and contribute more to coffee productivity, we will compare the performance of models using only priority fragments against all the forest fragments within the Atlantic forest biome. Finally we will model future distribution of coffee field and pollinator richness according to different climate changes scenarios to estimate future yields and then to determine future priority areas for pollinator and service provision.