Pollinator monitoring more than pays for itself

1. Resilient pollination services depend on sufficient abundance of pollinating insects over time. Currently, however, most knowledge about the status and trends of pollinators is based on changes in pollinator species richness and distribution only. 2. Systematic, long‐term monitoring of pollinators is urgently needed to provide baseline information on their status, to identify the drivers of declines and to inform suitable response measures. 3. Power analysis was used to determine the number of sites required to detect a 30% change in pollinator populations over 10 years. We then evaluated the full economic costs of implementing four national monitoring schemes in the UK: (a) professional pollinator monitoring, (b) professional pollination service monitoring, (c) volunteer collected pan traps and (d) volunteer focal floral observations. These costs were compared to (a) the costs of implementing separate, expert‐designed research and monitoring networks and (b) the economic benefits of pollination services threatened by pollinator loss. 4. Estimated scheme costs ranged from £6,159/year for a 75‐site volunteer focal flower observation scheme to £2.7 M/year for an 800‐site professional pollination service monitoring network. The estimated research costs saved using the site network as research infrastructure range from £1.46–4.17 M/year. The economic value of UK crop yield lost following a 30% decline in pollinators was estimated at ~£188 M/year. 5. Synthesis and applications. We evaluated the full costs of running pollinator monitoring schemes against the economic benefits to research and society they provide. The annual costs of monitoring are <0.02% of the economic value of pollination services that would be lost after a 30% decline in pollination services. Furthermore, by providing high‐quality scientific data, monitoring schemes would save at least £1.5 on data collection per £1 spent. Our findings demonstrate that long‐term systematic monitoring can be a cost‐effective tool for both answering key research questions and setting action points for policymakers. Careful consideration must be given to scheme design, the logistics of national‐scale implementation and resulting data quality when selecting the most appropriate combination of surveyors, methods and site networks to deliver a successful scheme.

[1]  M. Aizen,et al.  Crop pollination management needs flower‐visitor monitoring and target values , 2020, Journal of Applied Ecology.

[2]  A. Vogler,et al.  A validated workflow for rapid taxonomic assignment and monitoring of a national fauna of bees (Apiformes) using high throughput DNA barcoding , 2020, Molecular ecology resources.

[3]  M. Harvey,et al.  Monitoring insect pollinators and flower visitation: The effectiveness and feasibility of different survey methods , 2019, Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

[4]  S. Potts,et al.  Capacity and willingness of farmers and citizen scientists to monitor crop pollinators and pollination services , 2019, Global Ecology and Conservation.

[5]  Dave J Kilbey,et al.  Evaluating the ability of citizen scientists to identify bumblebee (Bombus) species , 2019, PloS one.

[6]  S. Christmann.  Morocco joined the Coalition of the Willing on Pollinators , 2019 .

[7]  Sainath Suryanarayanan,et al.  Pesticides and pollinators: A socioecological synthesis. , 2019, The Science of the total environment.

[8]  N. Isaac,et al.  Widespread losses of pollinating insects in Britain , 2019, Nature Communications.

[9]  H. Arathi,et al.  Assessing the efficacy of citizen scientists monitoring native bees in urban areas , 2019, Global Ecology and Conservation.

[10]  Friederike C. Bolam,et al.  Using the Value of Information to improve conservation decision making , 2018, Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

[11]  M. Pocock,et al.  Potential landscape-scale pollinator networks across Great Britain: structure, stability and influence of agricultural land cover. , 2018, Ecology letters.

[12]  Joseph R. Bennett,et al.  When to monitor and when to act: Value of information theory for multiple management units and limited budgets , 2018 .

[13]  Teja Tscharntke,et al.  Insect pollination as a key factor for strawberry physiology and marketable fruit quality , 2018 .

[14]  B. Geslin,et al.  Range expansion of the Asian native giant resin bee Megachile sculpturalis (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Megachilidae) in France , 2018, Ecology and evolution.

[15]  Michael J. O. Pocock,et al.  A Vision for Global Biodiversity Monitoring With Citizen Science , 2018 .

[16]  A. Agrawal,et al.  Science‐Policy‐Practice Interfaces: Emergent knowledge and monarch butterfly conservation , 2017 .

[17]  S. T. Buckland,et al.  Monitoring the biodiversity of regions: Key principles and possible pitfalls , 2017 .

[18]  S. Potts,et al.  The benefits of hedgerows for pollinators and natural enemies depends on hedge quality and landscape context , 2017 .

[19]  J. Fox,et al.  The relative importance of pollinator abundance and species richness for the temporal variance of pollination services. , 2017, Ecology.

[20]  Purwanto,et al.  Generating actionable data for evidence-based conservation: The global center of marine biodiversity as a case study , 2017 .

[21]  Margret C. Domroese,et al.  Why watch bees? Motivations of citizen science volunteers in the Great Pollinator Project , 2017 .

[22]  W. Jordan,et al.  Bumblebee family lineage survival is enhanced in high-quality landscapes , 2017, Nature.

[23]  David Kleijn,et al.  How to efficiently obtain accurate estimates of flower visitation rates by pollinators , 2017 .

[24]  Mark A. Goddard,et al.  Landscape impacts on pollinator communities in temperate systems: evidence and knowledge gaps , 2017 .

[25]  D. Lang,et al.  Leverage points for sustainability transformation , 2017, Ambio.

[26]  B. Morgan,et al.  A generalized abundance index for seasonal invertebrates , 2016, Biometrics.

[27]  N. Carreck.  Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland, By Stephen Falk. Illustrated by Richard Lewington , 2016 .

[28]  Henrik Nygård,et al.  Price vs. Value of Marine Monitoring , 2016, Front. Mar. Sci..

[29]  E. Dufrene,et al.  An expert-assisted citizen science program involving agricultural high schools provides national patterns on bee species assemblages , 2016, Journal of Insect Conservation.

[30]  F. Ratnieks,et al.  Data reliability in citizen science: learning curve and the effects of training method, volunteer background and experience on identification accuracy of insects visiting ivy flowers , 2016 .

[31]  C. Kremen,et al.  Pest Control and Pollination Cost–Benefit Analysis of Hedgerow Restoration in a Simplified Agricultural Landscape , 2016, Journal of Economic Entomology.

[32]  J. Biesmeijer,et al.  Apple Pollination: Demand Depends on Variety and Supply Depends on Pollinator Identity , 2016, PloS one.

[33]  M. Pocock,et al.  Focal Plant Observations as a Standardised Method for Pollinator Monitoring: Opportunities and Limitations for Mass Participation Citizen Science , 2016, PloS one.

[34]  F. Herzog,et al.  Relating costs to the user value of farmland biodiversity measurements. , 2016, Journal of environmental management.

[35]  Paul Galpern,et al.  Climate change impacts on bumblebees converge across continents , 2015, Science.

[36]  D. Goulson,et al.  Using citizen science to monitor pollination services , 2015 .

[37]  Emily A. May,et al.  Delivery of crop pollination services is an insufficient argument for wild pollinator conservation , 2015, Nature Communications.

[38]  S. Freeman,et al.  Comparison of trends in butterfly populations between monitoring schemes , 2014, Journal of Insect Conservation.

[39]  Rufus Isaacs,et al.  Flower plantings increase wild bee abundance and the pollination services provided to a pollination-dependent crop , 2014 .

[40]  S. Hamilton,et al.  Farming for Ecosystem Services: An Ecological Approach to Production Agriculture , 2014, Bioscience.

[41]  J. Biesmeijer,et al.  Avoiding a bad apple: Insect pollination enhances fruit quality and economic value☆ , 2014, Agriculture, ecosystems & environment.

[42]  J. Biesmeijer,et al.  Agricultural Policies Exacerbate Honeybee Pollination Service Supply-Demand Mismatches Across Europe , 2014, PloS one.

[43]  J. Biesmeijer,et al.  The identity of crop pollinators helps target conservation for improved ecosystem services☆ , 2014, Biological conservation.

[44]  David B. Lindenmayer,et al.  Counting the books while the library burns: why conservation monitoring programs need a plan for action , 2013 .

[45]  S. Potts,et al.  Environmental factors driving the effectiveness of European agri-environmental measures in mitigating pollinator loss--a meta-analysis. , 2013, Ecology letters.

[46]  Quentin Groom,et al.  Species richness declines and biotic homogenisation have slowed down for NW-European pollinators and plants , 2013, Ecology letters.

[47]  Michael J. O. Pocock,et al.  Identifying key knowledge needs for evidence‐based conservation of wild insect pollinators: a collaborative cross‐sectoral exercise , 2013 .

[48]  S. Droege,et al.  Detecting Insect Pollinator Declines on Regional and Global Scales , 2013, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[49]  Robert B. Waide,et al.  Long-Term Ecological Research Network , 2013 .

[50]  H. Possingham,et al.  To boldly go where no volunteer has gone before: predicting volunteer activity to prioritize surveys at the landscape scale , 2013 .

[51]  G. Likens,et al.  Value of long-term ecological studies , 2012 .

[52]  J. Biesmeijer,et al.  Insect pollinators: linking research and policy , 2012 .

[53]  Pedro Cardoso,et al.  The seven impediments in invertebrate conservation and how to overcome them , 2011 .

[54]  A F G Bourke,et al.  Bumble bee species' responses to a targeted conservation measure depend on landscape context and habitat quality. , 2011, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[55]  C. Kremen,et al.  Evaluating the Quality of Citizen‐Scientist Data on Pollinator Communities , 2011, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[56]  Brendan A Wintle,et al.  Allocating monitoring effort in the face of unknown unknowns. , 2010, Ecology letters.

[57]  H. Possingham,et al.  Monitoring does not always count. , 2010, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[58]  Jens Nieschulze,et al.  Implementing large-scale and long-term functional biodiversity research: The Biodiversity Exploratories , 2010 .

[59]  David B Lindenmayer,et al.  Adaptive monitoring: a new paradigm for long-term research and monitoring. , 2009, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[60]  J. Settele,et al.  Economic valuation of the vulnerability of world agriculture confronted with pollinator decline , 2009 .

[61]  James E. Lyons,et al.  Monitoring in the Context of Structured Decision-Making and Adaptive Management , 2008 .

[62]  J. Nichols,et al.  Monitoring for conservation. , 2006, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[63]  J. Silvertown,et al.  The Park Grass Experiment 1856–2006: its contribution to ecology , 2006 .

[64]  Jeremy J D Greenwood,et al.  The monitoring of British breeding birds: a success story for conservation science? , 2003, The Science of the total environment.