Scientists create global database to predict the role of crops pollinators worldwide
75% of the world's agricultural crops are fully or partially dependent on pollinators for food production.
Abridged version in English by Diana Taborda
Five researchers from the Centre for Functional Ecology of the University of Coimbra (UC) have participated in the creation of the first global, open and dynamic database on crop pollination, in the scope of an international project that brings together over a hundred scientists.
The database, called CropPol, is coordinated by two researchers from the Doñana Biological Station - EBD-CSIC, and includes information on 48 crops from 3,000 locations in five continents and 32 countries over three decades. It will make it possible to understand how the importance of pollinators varies according to the crop and region studied. It will also identify crops and regions for which there is insufficient data and encourage the collection of information to fill these knowledge gaps.
It is known that 75% of the world's agricultural crops are fully or partially dependent on pollinators for food production. However, despite great progress in understanding the impact of pollinators on agricultural performance, the ability to predict visitation rates and productivity is still limited due to the large variation observed between crops, years and regions. CropPol was therefore set up to collate the available data on crop pollination from published scientific studies worldwide, in order to pool knowledge and help predict pollination.
According to Sílvia Castro, researcher at the Centre for Functional Ecology of the UC, "this database offers researchers a unique opportunity to explore global patterns and trends and work on solutions for sustainable management and enhancement of biodiversity".
To publicise the database, built as part of the OBServ project funded by the Belmont Forum 2017-2018 and BiodivERsA, the international team worked on a scientific paper published in the prestigious journal "Ecology". The data collected in CropPol will be used to predict the level of pollination expected for different crops around the world. "Quantifying pollinators and their services is very time-consuming and can only be done for a small number of crop fields. If we can use a set of easily measured variables, such as the size of natural habitats or the amount of rainfall, to predict pollination rates, it will be a major breakthrough," says Alfonso Allen-Perkins, lead author of the article.