Frequent access to ecosystem services leads to increased understanding of pollination

Juliano Schiavo Sussi,Priscilla De Paula Loiola,Roberta Cornélio Ferreira Nocelli

doi:10.4322/2359-6643.09117

Abstract

The perception of people on conservation actions affect the efficiency of environmental policies, since it impacts the success of its mplementation. We tested whether the perception of people on pollination change among productive and consumption sectors, and if it is influenced by the degree of schooling, using the production-chain of the passion fruit as study model, which demands crossed-pollination provided by large-sized bees. The perception of people along five sectors was evaluated from production to consumption, interviewing 162 people with a questionnaire on passion-fruit pollination. With a correspondence analysis, we correlated each production and consumption sector to the knowledge about pollination presented by them. The understands of each sector was related to the type of education that they received previously (formal/scholar vs. non-scholar, including non-formal education and courses) through a Kruskal-Wallis test. Sellers of inputs and farmers were correlated to perceive bees in a positive way, know more correct concepts about pollination and bee species, and praised large-bees in agriculture, compared to other sectors. Consumers perceived bees in a negative way, know fewer correct concepts on pollination, and associated them with food and not with ecosystem services. However, consumption sectors acknowledged bees as valuable and supported initiatives for pollinator-friendly agriculture. The higher degree of schooling lead to more knowledge on pollination among the sellers, but not in other sectors. In general, familiarity to the subject provided by experience and by non-scholar education increased the understanding about pollination. The insertion of ecosystem services in the daily life of people shall contribute to fixate knowledge and change the negative perceptions about ecosystem services and promote conservation policies.

Highlights

Pollination has a central role in the food production, directly affecting fruit and seed qualities and representing a fundamental ecosystem service to natural and agricultural crops (Klein et al, 2007)
Bees are threatened by land-use change and deforestation (Ramírez et al, 2013), and a decrease in pollination has been documented since the 1990s (Potts et al, 2010; Goulson et al, 2015)
The farmers of the passion fruit know the importance of bees as agents of pollination and recognize their positive role, which was found in other studies (Gurung, 2003; Kasina et al, 2009) not found in other sectors related to production and consumption of the passion fruit, despite their degree of schooling

Summary

Introduction

Pollination has a central role in the food production, directly affecting fruit and seed qualities and representing a fundamental ecosystem service to natural and agricultural crops (Klein et al, 2007). Bees are the most important group, being responsible for 73% of the pollination of agricultural crops in the world (FAO, 2004). Despite their great importance, bees are threatened by land-use change and deforestation (Ramírez et al, 2013), and a decrease in pollination has been documented since the 1990s (Potts et al, 2010; Goulson et al, 2015). There are some human-driven factors decreasing the delivery of the ecosystem service of pollination, such as deforestation, habitat fragmentation, excessive use of pesticides, presence of invasive species, pathogens, and climate change (Le Conte and Navajas, 2008; Neumann and Carreck, 2010; Potts et al, 2010; Goulson et al, 2015; Paudel et al, 2015). One promising way to mitigate the causes of the decrease in pollination is to inform people through environmental education, so they promote the conservation policies (Ramadoss and Poyya Moli, 2011; Frantz and Mayer, 2013)

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion