It has been reported that up to 95% of all flowering plants require the services of other organisms to move pollen from male to female flower parts during the pollination process. These organisms, including bees, are collectively known as pollinators. However, in light of the growing evidence of global declines in pollinator species, the management, ecology and conservation of wild and managed pollinators is a subject of growing importance and research activity. Promoting pollination and pollinators in farming reviews the wealth of research on our current understanding of existing pollination processes and their importance to our global ecosystems.
The book considers how pollinators interact with plants, as well as the major threats to pollinator species, including climate change, diseases and pesticide exposure. Through its comprehensive exploration of the current status of pollinators in farming, the book provides its readers with the knowledge required to promote pollination by protecting the world’s pollinators species and the ecosystem services they deliver using techniques such as habitat conservation.
Key Features:
- Reviews recent advances in understanding pollination dynamics and the role of plant-pollinator relationships in agro-ecosystems
- Provides a comprehensive assessment of the major threats to economically important pollinators, including the impact of climate change and disease threat
- Explores best practices for the protection of key pollinators and the ecosystem services they deliver
Audience: University and other researchers in the environmental and biological sciences, conservationists, entomologists, farmers as well as government and private sector agencies supporting sustainable crop production.
Table of Contents
About the Editor
Professor Evans is an ecologist and conservationist at Newcastle University, UK using network theory and DNA-metabarcoding to understand the impacts of environmental change on species-interactions and ecosystem functioning.Dr Jose Franco is a Research Agroecologist with the US Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, WI. His research focus is at the intersection of cover crop systems and precision agriculture and explores methods to increase cover crop performance and inclusion in dairy forage rotations.
Professor Rob Paxton is Chair of Zoology at the University of Halle, Germany. He has held postdoc positions at Cardiff University, UK, Uppsala University, Sweden and the University of Tübingen, Germany. His main research areas are: social evolution, host-parasite relations, pollination and conservation genetics, with a taxonomic focus on bees.
Professor Stevenson holds a PhD in Chemical Ecology from University of London and is Head of Trait Diversity and Function at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, studying plant and fungal traits, to aid conservation, increase resilience to global change, and explore potential uses of plants and fungi for human health and well-being. Professor Stevenson also holds a dual role as Professor of Plant Chemistry at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich.
Dr D. Susan Willis Chan works in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph where she conducts research in entomology, ecology and biology, as well as working with Canadian farmers on conserving pollinators. Susan is a species expert on the ground-nesting hoary squash bee and has a strong interest in all aspects of agroecology.
Dr Peter Kevan is Emeritus Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph, Canada. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Waterloo and Ottawa University, Canada and a Research Associate of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Royal Botanical Garden. Professor Kevan is internationally renowned for his research on the biology and conservation of bees and other pollinators, with over 200 publications on these topics. Amongst other honours, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Entomological Society and the Royal Society of Biology.
