e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture

A bibliometric study

The e-ROSA project seeks to build a shared vision of a future sustainable e-infrastructure for research and education in agriculture in order to promote Open Science in this field and as such contribute to addressing related societal challenges. In order to achieve this goal, e-ROSA’s first objective is to bring together the relevant scientific communities and stakeholders and engage them in the process of coelaboration of an ambitious, practical roadmap that provides the basis for the design and implementation of such an e-infrastructure in the years to come.

This website highlights the results of a bibliometric analysis conducted at a global scale in order to identify key scientists and associated research performing organisations (e.g. public research institutes, universities, Research & Development departments of private companies) that work in the field of agricultural data sources and services. If you have any comment or feedback on the bibliometric study, please use the online form.

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Title

Pollination services decline with distance from natural habitat even in biodiversity-rich areas

en
Abstract

P>1. There is considerable evidence for the negative impacts of habitat alteration on pollinators in highly disturbed regions of the world. However, it remains unclear whether these findings reflect a global crisis for crop pollination. Understanding the extent to which world agriculture is endangered by pollinator decline is essential if the economic valuation of nature is to be used to promote conservation. 2. We assess the susceptibility to pollinator limitation of one of the most important tropical and subtropical fruit crops, mango Mangifera indica L., commonly planted in a region of South Africa located between two large biodiversity-rich protected natural areas. We conducted flower visitor surveys, exclusion experiments and spatial analysis of flower visitation and fruit production patterns. 3. Our results show that both ants and flower visitors were effective pollinators of mango, the latter significantly declining (in abundance and species richness) with distance to natural habitat while ants were not affected. Neither the absence of pesticides nor the supplementation of flower visitors by using managed honeybees served to offset these negative impacts. Food-web data suggest that maintaining diversity of flower resources within farmland can help maintain pollinator communities. 4. Moreover, models based exclusively on pollinator abundance underestimated the negative effect of distance from natural habitat on production (42% less at 500 m from natural habitat). As soil nutrient levels and water content are regularly measured and corrected in all study sites, these results suggest that pollinator diversity may also be important. 5. Synthesis and applications. This study provides one of the first examples of marked pollination limitation in farms surrounded by well-protected natural habitat. For mango farming to be sustainable, it is essential to limit contiguous growth of farmland and consider practices that restore the complexity of plant-pollinator networks within farms, for example through the creation and maintenance of pollinator-friendly areas. By highlighting the economic gains of adopting pollinator-friendly practices in agriculture, this work contributes to a growing body of studies that reveal that making farmland more suitable for pollinators benefits both agriculture and nature conservation.

en
Year
2010
en
Country
  • ZA
Organization
  • Univ_Pretoria (ZA)
  • SANBI_S_African_Natl_Biodivers_Inst (ZA)
Data keywords
  • web data
en
Agriculture keywords
  • farming
  • agriculture
  • farm
en
Data topic
  • information systems
  • modeling
en
SO
JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
Document type

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Institutions 10 co-publis
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    e-ROSA - e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730988.
    Disclaimer: The sole responsibility of the material published in this website lies with the authors. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.