Services performed by the ecosystem: forest remnants influence agricultural cultures' pollination and production

Abstract

Ecosystem services are natural functions of an ecosystem that can be, secondarily, used for the benefit of humans. A recent estimate showed that ecosystem services equal, on average, 33 trillion dollars a year, with pollination being responsible for 112 billions dollars. The alteration of natural systems and the loss of pollinating species have caused a decrease in many crops' productivity. The objective of this work is to evaluate the pollination as an ecological service in agriculture, testing the hypothesis that the presence of forest remnants increases coffee agricultural productivity through an increase in pollination. This argument is based on the assumption that areas of preservation of native forest required by Brazilian law provide pollinators to local agroecosystems. Fruit production was compared among three different planting regimes: agrosilviculture, and conventional monoculture with and without preserved forest remnants nearby. The average flower production by branch was different among the farms and was not related to the planting methods. The first flowering was larger than the second, representing 81–98% of the flowers' total production. The farms near forest fragments had an increase of 14.6% in production that can be related to the pollinating services.