Global meta-analysis shows reduced quality of food crops under inadequate animal pollination

Abstract

Animal pollination supports the production of a wide range of food crops fundamental to maintaining diverse and nutritionally balanced diets. Here, we present a global meta-analysis quantifying the contribution of pollination to multiple facets of crop quality, including both organoleptic and nutritional traits. In fruits and vegetables, pollinators strongly improve several commercially important attributes related to appearance and shelf life, whereas they have smaller effects on nutritional value. Pollination does not increase quality in stimulant crops, nuts, and spices. We report weak signals of a pollination deficit for organoleptic traits, which might indicate a potential service decline across agricultural landscapes. However, the deficit is small and non-significant at the α = 0.05 level, suggesting that pollen deposition from wild and/or managed pollinators is sufficient to maximise quality in most cases. As producing commercially suboptimal fruits can have multiple negative economic and environmental consequences, safeguarding pollination services is important to maintain food security.