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Insects
Special Issues
Insect Pollinators and Pollination Service Provision
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Insect Pollinators and Pollination Service Provision

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2025) | Viewed by 9171

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 417 KB  
Article
Valuing Insect Pollination Services to Safeguard Crop Pollination in South Africa
by Ruan Veldtman and Willem J. de Lange
Insects 2025, 16(12), 1190; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects16121190 - 23 Nov 2025
Viewed by 447
Abstract
A worldwide decline in pollinators, combined with the growing demand for pollinator-dependant crops, is increasingly placing the value chains of these crops at risk. Socio-economic impacts can be significant, especially for those economies dependant on export-oriented fruit industries. The valuation of pollinator services [...] Read more.
A worldwide decline in pollinators, combined with the growing demand for pollinator-dependant crops, is increasingly placing the value chains of these crops at risk. Socio-economic impacts can be significant, especially for those economies dependant on export-oriented fruit industries. The valuation of pollinator services is often used for guiding management and investment decisions and aims to not only safeguard these services, but also to balance the supply of, and demand for, pollination services. Although South Africa has a rich pollinator biodiversity and a well-established managed honey bee industry, the supply of pollination is often outpaced by demand. Here for the first time, we attempt a calculation of the aggregate value of insect crop pollination services in South Africa. Using FAO data for 36 insect-dependent crops, we calculate the aggregate value of insect pollination in South Africa using the production function approach. Results show that in 2018, insect pollination was worth over USD 1500 million, equal to 42.2% of the annual production value of insect pollination-dependent crops in South Africa. We highlight the limitations of the valuation in guiding investment in pollination ecosystem services and managed pollination. We suggest that as a good practice, more detailed data related to crop pollination statistics should be collected to allow proper calculation of the ecosystem service contribution to national crop production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insect Pollinators and Pollination Service Provision)
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19 pages, 2207 KB  
Article
Insect Pollination Enhances Yield and Physicochemical Quality Traits in Three Jujube Cultivars
by Muhammad Waseem, Danyal Haider Khan, Mudssar Ali, Fawad Zafar Ahmad Khan, Ayesha Hakim, Sami Ullah, Syed Amir Manzoor, Tahir Hussain Awan and Raimondas Mozūraitis
Insects 2025, 16(12), 1183; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects16121183 - 21 Nov 2025
Viewed by 368
Abstract
Jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana Lam.) is a nutritionally rich tropical fruit which is native to South Asia. In Pakistan, there are 50 varieties of jujube, and approximately 24,000 tons of jujube is harvested annually from a growing area of nearly 5000 hectares. The [...] Read more.
Jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana Lam.) is a nutritionally rich tropical fruit which is native to South Asia. In Pakistan, there are 50 varieties of jujube, and approximately 24,000 tons of jujube is harvested annually from a growing area of nearly 5000 hectares. The current study was conducted to investigate whether insect pollination affects fruit yield, and whether it influences the physical and biochemical properties of the fruit. We selected fifty inflorescences from each of the three jujube cultivars (Kheri, Desi, Ayuba) and covered them with muslin cloth to promote self-pollination. The same number was tagged to observe the impact of open pollination. Fruits from both treatments were counted on each panicle, harvested, and then subjected to lab investigation for measuring physical (fruit length, fruit width, fruit weight, and pulp weight) and biochemical (total soluble solids, titratable acidity, vitamin C, and pH) parameters. A diverse range of floral visitors, including bees, flies, wasps, moths, and butterflies, were observed on jujube, with bees being the most abundant functional group. Open pollination increased fruit set (fruits per inflorescence) by 2.3–2.5 times compared to self-pollination. Similar trends were observed in physical parameters: fruit length (1.15 to 1.30 times increase), fruit width (1.15 to 1.21 times), total weight (1.60 to 1.74 times), and pulp weight (1.55 to 1.62 times). Changes in physiological parameters, including pH, vitamin C, titratable acidity, and total soluble solids, were also observed in pollination treatments of all three varieties. Open-pollinated fruit also exhibited greater length and width, but lower firmness. These findings show the vital role of insect-mediated pollination in enhancing both the yield and quality of jujube fruit, with consistent benefits observed across multiple varieties. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insect Pollinators and Pollination Service Provision)
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14 pages, 1829 KB  
Article
Investigating the Spatial Biases and Temporal Trends in Insect Pollinator Occurrence Data on GBIF
by Ehsan Rahimi and Chuleui Jung
Insects 2025, 16(8), 769; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects16080769 - 26 Jul 2025
Viewed by 1654
Abstract
Research in biogeography, ecology, and biodiversity hinges on the availability of comprehensive datasets that detail species distributions and environmental conditions. At the forefront of this endeavor is the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). This study focuses on investigating spatial biases and temporal trends [...] Read more.
Research in biogeography, ecology, and biodiversity hinges on the availability of comprehensive datasets that detail species distributions and environmental conditions. At the forefront of this endeavor is the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). This study focuses on investigating spatial biases and temporal trends in insect pollinator occurrence data within the GBIF dataset, specifically focusing on three pivotal pollinator groups: bees, hoverflies, and butterflies. Addressing these gaps in GBIF data is essential for comprehensive analyses and informed pollinator conservation efforts. We obtained occurrence data from GBIF for seven bee families, six butterfly families, and the Syrphidae family of hoverflies in 2024. Spatial biases were addressed by eliminating duplicate records with identical latitude and longitude coordinates. Species richness was assessed for each family and country. Temporal trends were examined by tallying annual occurrence records for each pollinator family, and the diversity of data sources within GBIF was evaluated by quantifying unique data publishers. We identified initial occurrence counts of 4,922,390 for bees, 1,703,131 for hoverflies, and 31,700,696 for butterflies, with a substantial portion containing duplicate records. On average, 81.4% of bee data, 77.2% of hoverfly data, and 65.4% of butterfly data were removed post-duplicate elimination for dataset refinement. Our dataset encompassed 9286 unique bee species, 2574 hoverfly species, and 17,895 butterfly species. Our temporal analysis revealed a notable trend in data recording, with 80% of bee and butterfly data collected after 2022, and a similar threshold for hoverflies reached after 2023. The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Sweden consistently emerged as the top countries for occurrence data across all three groups. The analysis of data publishers highlighted iNaturalist.org as a top contributor to bee data. Overall, we uncovered significant biases in the occurrence data of pollinators from GBIF. These biases pose substantial challenges for future research on pollinator ecology and biodiversity conservation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insect Pollinators and Pollination Service Provision)
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18 pages, 2048 KB  
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 4 | Viewed by 3274
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)
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17 pages, 2186 KB  
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 2121
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)
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