Climate change affects the distribution and phenology of species and contrasting responses to climate change might cause temporal and/or spatial mismatches between interacting species. In a resent review we found a potential for both spatial and temporal mismatches in wild plant-pollinator interactions as a result of increased temperatures (Hegland et al. 2009). Pollination is seen as an important ecosystem function not only for wild plants, but also for entomophilous crops. A rough estimate indicates that insects, on a global scale, deliver pollination services of a value of € 153 billion annually. However, little is know on the effects of climate change on food production from crops depending on insects for optimal yield. We were therefore asked by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to assess this issue (Kjøhl et al. 2010).

Results/Conclusions

We found that the lack of knowledge on temperature sensitivity of crop plants and their pollinators is striking, especially in the tropics where the diversity of enthomophilous crops is expected to be highest. We found no study addressing the effects of climate change on crop pollination directly. Based on studies on wild plant-pollinator systems and data on temperature sensitivity of some key crop pollinators we believe the potential for spatial and temporal mismatches to be present also for crop pollination. The socioeconomic consequences of reduced pollination service can be severe both in highly industrialized agroecosystems depending on large scale pollinator farming (managed honey bees) and in more diverse small scale agroecosystems depending on wild pollinators. We emphasize the need of more studies to increase our knowledge on the basic ecology of crop pollination under climate change to secure food production for an increasing human population.

Hegland SJ, Nielsen A, Lázaro A, Bjerknes A-L, Totland Ø (2009) How does climate warming affect plant-pollinator interactions? Ecology Letters 12:184-195

Kjøhl M, Nielsen A, Stenseth NC (2010) Potential effects of climate change on crop pollination. FAO repport in press