The economic importance of interactions between different pollinator species: giving order to biodiversity ~ ecosystem service relationships

This project investigates the importance of wild pollinator diversity for agricultural strawberry production in order to strengthen our understanding of how the stability of biodiversity ~ ecosystem services relationships is affected by environmental change.

We will focus on how competitive interactions between different pollinator species affect crop pollination services, and if these impacts are mediated by landscape simplification.

To this aim, we will (1) comprehensively quantify the importance of wild pollinator taxa for strawberry crops, and evaluate their resilience to landscape simplification, (2) quantify how resource-mediated interactions (priority effects) between pollinators influence pollination services, and (3) quantify how resource competition with managed honeybees affects the foraging activity of wild bees.

In each step, we link pollination success to yield quality, to provide empirical information regarding the economic benefits of wild pollinator diversity.

We propose a variety of field-based experimental and observational studies within strawberry farms to gain mechanistic understanding of the ecological processes that underpin the stability of pollination services provided by biodiversity.

This project will be undertaken in close collaboration with stakeholders to inform the implementation of biodiversity-friendly farm practices that synergistically improve conservation, farmer welfare and consumer end-products.