Abstract
Worldwide, human appropriation of ecosystems is disrupting plant–pollinator communities and pollination function through habitat conversion and landscape homogenisation. Conversion to agriculture is destroying and degrading semi‐natural ecosystems while conventional land‐use intensification (e.g. industrial management of large‐scale monocultures with high chemical inputs) homogenises landscape structure and quality. Together, these anthropogenic processes reduce the connectivity of populations and erode floral and nesting resources to undermine pollinator abundance and diversity, and ultimately pollination services. Ecological intensification of agriculture represents a strategic alternative to ameliorate these drivers of pollinator decline while supporting sustainable food production, by promoting biodiversity beneficial to agricultural production through management practices such as intercropping, crop rotations, farm‐level diversification and reduced agrochemical use. We critically evaluate its potential to address and reverse the land use and management trends currently degrading pollinator communities and potentially causing widespread pollination deficits. We find that many of the practices that constitute ecological intensification can contribute to mitigating the drivers of pollinator decline. Our findings support ecological intensification as a solution to pollinator declines, and we discuss ways to promote it in agricultural policy and practice.
Highlights
The interrelated growth in the global human population, economic wealth, globalised trade and technological developments produces environmental pressures that alter pollinator biodiversity and pollination
We identify specific actions that farmers or land managers may take to achieve ecological intensification (Table 1), including actions focused on enhancing pollination or pest regulation services delivered by mobile agents
We suggest that most facets of ecological intensification, whether focused on pollination or other ecosystem services, can address one or more of the major land use-related drivers of pollinator decline (Table 1)
Summary
The interrelated growth in the global human population, economic wealth, globalised trade and technological developments produces environmental pressures that alter pollinator biodiversity and pollination. We discuss the viability and policy implications of ecological intensification as an integrated solution sustaining pollinator communities, pollinatordependent crop production and wild plant reproduction.
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