Back in April 2015 I attended a two day meeting at Imperial College’s Silwood Park campus to discuss initial project ideas to address evidence gaps in the recent National Pollinator Strategy. I mentioned the meeting in passing in a post at the time concerned with whether biodiversity scientists should also be campaigners, but didn’t say a lot about what conclusions we came to and what the next steps would be because at the time I was unclear on both of those counts: it was a very wide ranging meeting with a lot of participants coming at the question of pollinator conservation from different perspectives. As well as academics there were representatives from the agrochemical industry, government research organisations, and the National Farmers Union.
During summer 2015 one of the conveners of the meeting, Dr Richard Gill, herded cats organised colleagues, pulled together all of the text and ideas that were generated, and took on the task of seeing a summary of the meeting through from initial draft to publication. It was a monumental effort, involving 27 authors and 86 manuscript pages, and Richard did a sterling job. Entitled “Protecting an ecosystem service: approaches to understanding and mitigating threats to wild insect pollinators” it will appear as a chapter in the next volume of Advances in Ecological Research, which should be published later this month.
The abstract and contents for the chapter are below; if anyone wants a copy of the full chapter, please let me know.
Abstract
Insect pollination constitutes an ecosystem service of global importance, providing significant economic and aesthetic benefits as well as cultural value to human society, alongside vital ecological processes in terrestrial ecosystems. It is therefore important to understand how insect pollinator populations and communities respond to rapidly changing environments if we are to maintain healthy and effective pollinator services. This paper considers the importance of conserving pollinator diversity to maintain a suite of functional traits to provide a diverse set of pollinator services. We explore how we can better understand and mitigate the factors that threaten insect pollinator richness, placing our discussion within the context of populations in predominantly agricultural landscapes in addition to urban environments. We highlight a selection of important evidence gaps, with a number of complementary research steps that can be taken to better understand: i) the stability of pollinator communities in different landscapes in order to provide diverse pollinator services; ii) how we can study the drivers of population change to mitigate the effects and support stable sources of pollinator services; and, iii) how we can manage habitats in complex landscapes to support insect pollinators and provide sustainable pollinator services for the
future. We advocate a collaborative effort to gain higher quality abundance data to understand the stability of pollinator populations and predict future trends. In addition, for effective mitigation strategies to be adopted, researchers need to conduct rigorous field- testing of outcomes under different landscape settings, acknowledge the needs of end-users when developing research proposals and consider effective methods of knowledge transfer to ensure effective uptake of actions.
Contents
1. Importance of Insect Pollination
1.1 Providing an Ecosystem Service
1.2 Brief Introduction to Pollination Ecology and the Importance of Wild
Pollinators
2. Major Threats to the Pollination Service Provided by Insects
3. Steps in the Right Direction to Protect Insect Pollinator Services: Policy Actions
4. Understanding and Mitigating Specific Threats to Wild Insect Pollinators to Protect Pollinator Services
4.1 Understanding the Stability of Insect Pollinator Communities
4.2 Using Molecular Approaches to Monitor Insect Pollinators
4.3 How Do Parasites Shape Wild Insect Pollinator Populations?
4.4 Understanding Insect Pollinator Population Responses to Resource Availability
4.5 Engineering Flowering Field Margins as Habitats to Attract Insect Pollinators
4.6 How Might We Improve the Wider Countryside to Support Insect Pollinators
4.7 Insect Pollinators in Urban Areas
5. Considerations When Developing Future Research and Mitigation Strategies
Acknowledgements
Appendix
References
Prof. Jeff Ollerton - ecological scientist and author 
Jeff – this looks like a great contribution, especially given the importance of thinking about wild pollinators and wild pollinator services in light of all the hype over honeybees (which of course you’ve written about elsewhere). So despite my skepticism over “ecosystem services” as a conservation motivation (http://wp.me/p5x2kS-7Y), I look forward to seeing this!
Thanks Steve. You know, I completely missed your post on lupins* and ESs! My only excuse is that it was less than two weeks before our wedding so it’s possible that I was preoccupied 🙂
I think you raise an excellent point in that post but I’d not throw out the whole ES concept based on that example, though it is an interesting one.
*In the UK we’d say lupins rather than lupines, and reserve “lupine” to mean “wolf-like”.
You are forgive for being preoccupied!
I agree that a single example shouldn’t sink the ship (to mangle a metaphor), although I think there are plenty more. I really worry about any tie of conservation to ESs, as I don’t see any logical reason why the conservation outcomes I value should map 1:1 to optimal levels of ESs.
By the way, “lupin” vs. “lupine” drives me nuts. It seems that US usage is “lupine”, and Canada, as usual, is caught halfway between UK and US usage. So I talk about the “colour” of my “windshield” but, for no apparent reason, no the “color” of my “windscreen”! What a language…
Jeff
I would definitely be interested in the full chapter. I’m coming into the last year of a PhD on hoverflies as pollinators in Welsh grasslands, and it looks as if this will be required reading!
My university email is 599841@swansea.ac.uk
Andrew Lucas
Thanks Andrew, on its way.
Jeff, my research team is examining how pollinators can be best protected on First Nation lands in Canada, I would be very interested in reading this book chapter. My university email is: harvey.lemelin@lakeheadu.ca.
On its way.
Jeff,
Thank you for this post, I always find your blog fascinating and useful. I’d love a copy of the chapter. I entering the second year of my PhD studying pollinator networks.
My email is msb28@bath.ac.uk
Miranda
Thanks Miranda, on its way to you.
Hi Jeff,
This looks like an interesting read! I’d love a copy as I’m currently in the process of writing up my PhD on pollination ecosystem services in Trinidad. It looks like this will be very helpful. My email address is lena.dempewolf@my.uwi.edu.
Thanks!
Lena
Sure, will send it now.
Hi Jeff, I would be interested in this for my dissertation on bees and use of scrub on acid grasslands, it would be great if you could send me a copy!
My email is jamierossigould@hotmail.co.uk,
Thanks,
Jamie Gould
Will send it this morning.
Is there anything on the use of bees bred for pollinating large monoculture areas as in the south of Spain. I would be interested in the chapter too.
georginawright@blueyonder.co.uk.
On its way.
Thanks!
Hello Jeff,
I would be very insterested in reading this chapter, I’m doing a PhD on plant-pollinator interactions and ecosystem services. My email address is: e.d.moss2@ncl.ac.uk.
Many thanks,
Ellen Moss
Sure, will send it today.
Hi, I am partially working with a Norwegian NGO focusing on bumble bees. Could you send the paper over to akr at hiof.no ? I would love to read it.
Sure, it’s on its way.
hi there !
could you please send me the chapter ?
Thank you
Regards
Vidushi
PhD student
University of Western Australia
WA 6009
Sure, a copy is on its way.