Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.1
2.7
Journals
Insects
Special Issues
Insect Pollinators and Pollination Service Provision
share announcement

Insect Pollinators and Pollination Service Provision

A special issue of Insects (ISSN 2075-4450).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025 | Viewed by 4193

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ruan Veldtman

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Kirstenbosch Research Centre, South African National Biodiversity Institute, Private Bag X7, Claremont 7735, South Africa
2. Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa
Interests: ecosystem services; pollinator dependent crops; managed pollinators; economic valuation; sustainable management; conservation
Dr. Willem De Lange

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7601, South Africa
Interests: agricultural economics; ecosystem service; pollinator forage services; environmental and resource economics
Dr. Wenda Cheng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Ecology, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen, China
Interests: population level; community level; species interaction under environmental changes

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The pollination services that insects provide are vital to man and the biodiversity of ecosystems. Documenting the value of crop pollination is thus an important goal to motivate the sustainable management and conservation of insect pollinators. The aim of this Special Issue is to focus on the difference between wild and managed pollination services and address their potential competition, to highlight the different dynamics and approaches for the required sustainable management, and to showcase the importance of the geographic context. We welcome all papers related to insect crop pollinators and the pollination service they provide that is directly related to ecological and social dynamics. Especially interesting and counter intuitive pollination service case studies or new conceptual frameworks will be strongly encouraged.

Dr. Ruan Veldtman
Dr. Willem De Lange
Dr. Wenda Cheng
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Insects is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • crop pollination
  • honeybee
  • native pollinators
  • agricultural production
  • landscape context

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

18 pages, 2048 KiB  
Article
A New SDM-Based Approach for Assessing Climate Change Effects on Plant–Pollinator Networks
by Ehsan Rahimi and Chuleui Jung
Insects 2024, 15(11), 842; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects15110842 - 28 Oct 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2042
Abstract
Current methods for studying the effects of climate change on plants and pollinators can be grouped into two main categories. The first category involves using species distribution models (SDMs) to generate habitat suitability maps, followed by applying climate change scenarios to predict the [...] Read more.
Current methods for studying the effects of climate change on plants and pollinators can be grouped into two main categories. The first category involves using species distribution models (SDMs) to generate habitat suitability maps, followed by applying climate change scenarios to predict the future distribution of plants and pollinators separately. The second category involves constructing interaction matrices between plants and pollinators and then either randomly removing species or selectively removing generalist or specialist species, as a way to estimate how climate change might affect the plant–pollinator network. The primary limitation of the first approach is that it examines plant and pollinator distributions separately, without considering their interactions within the context of a pollination network. The main weakness of the second approach is that it does not accurately predict climate change impacts, as it arbitrarily selects species to remove without knowing which species will truly shift, decline, or increase in distribution due to climate change. Therefore, a new approach is needed to bridge the gap between these two methods while avoiding their specific limitations. In this context, we introduced an innovative approach that first requires the creation of binary climate suitability maps for plants and pollinators, based on SDMs, for both the current and future periods. This step aligns with the first category of methods mentioned earlier. To assess the effects of climate change within a network framework, we consider species co-overlapping in a geographic matrix. For this purpose, we developed a Python program that overlays the binary distribution maps of plants and pollinators, generating interaction matrices. These matrices represent potential plant–pollinator interactions, with a ‘0’ indicating no overlap and a ‘1’ where both species coincide in the same cell. As a result, for each cell within the study area, we can construct interaction matrices for both the present and future periods. This means that for each cell, we can analyze at least two pollination networks based on species co-overlap. By comparing the topology of these matrices over time, we can infer how climate change might affect plant–pollinator interactions at a fine spatial scale. We applied our methodology to Chile as a case study, generating climate suitability maps for 187 plant species and 171 pollinator species, resulting in 2906 pollination networks. We then evaluated how climate change could affect the network topology across Chile on a cell-by-cell basis. Our findings indicated that the primary effect of climate change on pollination networks is likely to manifest more significantly through network extinctions, rather than major changes in network topology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insect Pollinators and Pollination Service Provision)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

17 pages, 2186 KiB  
Article
Spatial Modeling of Insect Pollination Services in Fragmented Landscapes
by Ehsan Rahimi and Chuleui Jung
Insects 2024, 15(9), 662; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects15090662 - 30 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1411
Abstract
Pollination mapping and modeling have opened new avenues for comprehending the intricate interactions between pollinators, their habitats, and the plants they pollinate. While the Lonsdorf model has been extensively employed in pollination mapping within previous studies, its conceptualization of bee movement in agricultural [...] Read more.
Pollination mapping and modeling have opened new avenues for comprehending the intricate interactions between pollinators, their habitats, and the plants they pollinate. While the Lonsdorf model has been extensively employed in pollination mapping within previous studies, its conceptualization of bee movement in agricultural landscapes presents notable limitations. Consequently, a gap exists in exploring the effects of forest fragmentation on pollination once these constraints are addressed. In this study, our objective is to model pollination dynamics in fragmented forest landscapes using a modified version of the Lonsdorf model, which operates as a distance-based model. Initially, we generated several simulated agricultural landscapes, incorporating forested and agricultural habitats with varying forest proportions ranging from 10% to 50%, along with a range of fragmentation degrees from low to high. Subsequently, employing the modified Lonsdorf model, we evaluated the nesting suitability and consequent pollination supply capacity across these diverse scenarios. We found that as the degree of forest fragmentation increases, resulting in smaller and more isolated patches with less aggregation, the pollination services within landscapes tend to become enhanced. In conclusion, our research suggests that landscapes exhibiting fragmented forest patch patterns generally display greater nesting suitability due to increased floral resources in their vicinity. These findings highlight the importance of employing varied models for pollination mapping, as modifications to the Lonsdorf model yield distinct outcomes compared to studies using the original version. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insect Pollinators and Pollination Service Provision)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-2
Back to TopTop