Garratt M P D, Breeze T D, Jenner N, Polce C, Biesmeijer J C, Potts S G
Centre for Agri-Environmental Research, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, UK.
Norman Collett English Fruit Marketing, Norman Collett House, Kent, UK.
Agric Ecosyst Environ. 2014 Feb 1;184(100):34-40. doi: 10.1016/j.agee.2013.10.032.
Insect pollination is important for food production globally and apples are one of the major fruit crops which are reliant on this ecosystem service. It is fundamentally important that the full range of benefits of insect pollination to crop production are understood, if the costs of interventions aiming to enhance pollination are to be compared against the costs of the interventions themselves. Most previous studies have simply assessed the benefits of pollination to crop yield and ignored quality benefits and how these translate through to economic values. In the present study we examine the influence of insect pollination services on farmgate output of two important UK apple varieties; Gala and Cox. Using field experiments, we quantify the influence of insect pollination on yield and importantly quality and whether either may be limited by sub-optimal insect pollination. Using an expanded bioeconomic model we value insect pollination to UK apple production and establish the potential for improvement through pollination service management. We show that insects are essential in the production of both varieties of apple in the UK and contribute a total of £36.7 million per annum, over £6 million more than the value calculated using more conventional dependence ratio methods. Insect pollination not only affects the quantity of production but can also have marked impacts on the quality of apples, influencing size, shape and effecting their classification for market. These effects are variety specific however. Due to the influence of pollination on both yield and quality in Gala, there is potential for insect pollination services to improve UK output by up to £5.7 million per annum. Our research shows that continued pollinator decline could have serious financial implications for the apple industry but there is considerable scope through management of wild pollinators or using managed pollinator augmentation, to improve the quality of production. Furthermore, we show that it is critically important to consider all production parameters including quality, varietal differences and management costs when valuing the pollination service of any crop so investment in pollinator management can be proportional to its contribution.
昆虫授粉对全球粮食生产至关重要，苹果是依赖这一生态系统服务的主要水果作物之一。如果要将旨在增强授粉的干预成本与干预本身的成本进行比较，那么了解昆虫授粉对作物生产的全部益处至关重要。以前的大多数研究只是简单地评估了授粉对作物产量的益处，而忽略了品质益处以及这些益处如何转化为经济价值。在本研究中，我们考察了昆虫授粉服务对英国两个重要苹果品种（嘎啦和考克斯）农场门产出的影响。通过田间试验，我们量化了昆虫授粉对产量的影响，重要的是对品质的影响，以及是否两者都可能受到次优昆虫授粉的限制。使用一个扩展的生物经济模型，我们对昆虫授粉对英国苹果生产的价值进行评估，并确定通过授粉服务管理实现改善的潜力。我们表明，昆虫对英国这两个苹果品种的生产至关重要，每年贡献总计3670万英镑，比使用更传统的依赖率方法计算出的价值多出600多万英镑。昆虫授粉不仅影响产量，还会对苹果品质产生显著影响，影响大小、形状并影响其市场分级。然而，这些影响因品种而异。由于授粉对嘎啦苹果的产量和品质都有影响，昆虫授粉服务有可能使英国的产出每年提高多达570万英镑。我们的研究表明，传粉者持续减少可能给苹果产业带来严重的经济影响，但通过管理野生传粉者或使用管理传粉者增加措施，有相当大的空间来提高生产质量。此外，我们表明，在评估任何作物的授粉服务价值时，考虑所有生产参数（包括品质、品种差异和管理成本）至关重要，这样对传粉者管理的投资才能与其贡献成比例。
