Mutually beneficial pollinator diversity and crop yield outcomes in small and large farms

TLDR

Ecological intensification—boosting crop yield through biodiversity—offers a sustainable way to increase food supplies, especially for the 2 billion people on small farms, but its efficacy remains largely unknown. The study quantifies how increasing pollinator density and richness affects yields across 344 fields in 33 crop systems on small and large farms in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The authors applied a coordinated, multi‑region protocol measuring pollinator density and richness to assess yield impacts. Yield gaps in fields under 2 ha were closed by a median 24 % through higher pollinator density, while larger fields benefited only when pollinator richness was high, demonstrating that ecological intensification can synchronously enhance biodiversity and crop yields worldwide.

Abstract

Ecological intensification, or the improvement of crop yield through enhancement of biodiversity, may be a sustainable pathway toward greater food supplies. Such sustainable increases may be especially important for the 2 billion people reliant on small farms, many of which are undernourished, yet we know little about the efficacy of this approach. Using a coordinated protocol across regions and crops, we quantify to what degree enhancing pollinator density and richness can improve yields on 344 fields from 33 pollinator-dependent crop systems in small and large farms from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For fields less than 2 hectares, we found that yield gaps could be closed by a median of 24% through higher flower-visitor density. For larger fields, such benefits only occurred at high flower-visitor richness. Worldwide, our study demonstrates that ecological intensification can create synchronous biodiversity and yield outcomes.