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Bee pollination improves crop quality, shelf life and commercial value

Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-120797
  • Pollination improves the yield of most crop species and contributes to one-third of global crop production, but comprehensive benefits including crop quality are still unknown. Hence, pollination is underestimated by international policies, which is particularly alarming in times of agricultural intensification and diminishing pollination services. In this study, exclusion experiments with strawberries showed bee pollination to improve fruit quality, quantity and market value compared with wind and self-pollination. Bee-pollinated fruits werePollination improves the yield of most crop species and contributes to one-third of global crop production, but comprehensive benefits including crop quality are still unknown. Hence, pollination is underestimated by international policies, which is particularly alarming in times of agricultural intensification and diminishing pollination services. In this study, exclusion experiments with strawberries showed bee pollination to improve fruit quality, quantity and market value compared with wind and self-pollination. Bee-pollinated fruits were heavier, had less malformations and reached higher commercial grades. They had increased redness and reduced sugar–acid–ratios and were firmer, thus improving the commercially important shelf life. Longer shelf life reduced fruit loss by at least 11%. This is accounting for 0.32 billion US$ of the 1.44 billion US$ provided by bee pollination to the total value of 2.90 billion US$ made with strawberry selling in the European Union 2009. The fruit quality and yield effects are driven by the pollination-mediated production of hormonal growth regulators, which occur in several pollination-dependent crops. Thus, our comprehensive findings should be transferable to a wide range of crops and demonstrate bee pollination to be a hitherto underestimated but vital and economically important determinant of fruit quality.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author: Björn K. Klatt, Andrea Holzschuh, Catrin Westphal, Yann Clough, Inga Smit, Elke Pawelzik, Teja Tscharntke
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-120797
Document Type:Journal article
Faculties:Fakultät für Biologie / Theodor-Boveri-Institut für Biowissenschaften
Language:English
Parent Title (English):Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Year of Completion:2014
Volume:281
Issue:1775
Source:Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281: 20132440. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2440
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2440
Pubmed Id:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24307669
Dewey Decimal Classification:5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 57 Biowissenschaften; Biologie / 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie
Tag:commercial grades; crop yield; ecology; ecosystem services; post-harvest quality; shelf life; strawberry
Release Date:2016/02/16
Licence (German):License LogoCC BY: Creative-Commons-Lizenz: Namensnennung