Human actions are causing the fabric of life to unravel, posing serious risks for the quality of life of people, thus more ambitious conservation efforts are needed to stop the global degradation of ecosystems and the extinction of the species that comprise them. With this work we want to combine spatially explicit global map of conservation priorities in order to identify a smaller set of priorities that maximize the preservation of synergies between biodiversity conservation and the achievement of other societal goals. A fundamental Nature Contribution to people is crop pollination which has long been recognized as an ecosystem service of huge economic value and priority importance to human food security and well-being. Since a large number of food crops depend upon pollination, it is important to identify where pollination is most critical to agricultural production in order to prioritize important biodiversity areas for pollinator conservation. The assessment of Nature's Contribution to People (NCP) is a relevant strategy for decision-making given the increasing need to reconcile biodiversity and human society with conservation. Through our study, we aim to advance the understanding of the synergies between the conservation of nature and the neglected role of wild pollinators in the agricultural systems. This will be achieved by measuring pollination service across landscapes combining a monetary and a non-monetary approach, developing a method that uses open access data sets to remotely estimate the relative provision of pollination service delivery provided across important areas of biodiversity value.
This is the first study that tries to incorporate a comprehensive spatially explicit set of areas of important conservation value within an analysis aiming to explore their potential benefits to pollination at a large scale. Since the areas of important conservation value that we will analyse also include areas without an official conservation status, we will be able to estimate what could be the potential loss of pollination services if dramatic land use changes were to occur in those areas. Through our study, we aim to advance the understanding of the synergies between the conservation of nature and the neglected role of wild pollinators in the agricultural systems. Considering that the demand of food is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years, it is of great importance to expose the beneficial contributions offered by biodiversity and well-functioning ecosystems to the food security and livelihoods of people. Our approach aimed at a large spatial scale is also expected to highlight that the loss of such contributions from nature have consequences at a large scale since large proportions of our dietary intake of food is coming from regions where many of those exceptionally important areas for conservation are present.
The multidisciplinary potential of our model allows us to provide a spatial approach for land managers to identify regions of important conservation value but at the same time provides an approximation of areas of important economic value because of the ecosystem services it provides. It also offers a spatial approach to policy makers to invest in actions aiming at the restoration of degraded habitats with an approach to enhance pollination service delivery. We expect the global map of pollination benefit to aid focusing the science of ecosystem services by pointing to conservation hotspots for the generation of pollination benefits as well as for countries with a high vulnerability towards a decline in pollination service supply. It will be also the first time that a comprehensive and tailored list of wild and domesticated pollinators is done for the crops that overcome the 50% threshold of dependency.