Vulnerability of Crop Pollination Ecosystem Services to Climate Change

Abstract

Crop pollination is one of the most valuable ecosystem services. It plays an important part in human food security. Pollination services are mainly provided by wild pollinator species as solitary bees and by commercially managed honeybees. Pollinators also have a key role in maintaining other ecosystem services including ensuring biodiversity. Declines in bee diversity over the last two decade have been recorded in many countries worldwide. Some drivers generate many stressors for pollinators such as loss of habitat, nest fragmentation, urbanization, reduced floral resource supply, increasing of pests and diseases, extensive use of pesticides and climate change. Climate change is potentially the most serious threat to pollinator biodiversity, reducing crop productivity and negatively impacting global food security. This chapter focuses on explaining the evidence of the biotic responses to the slight climate changes that occurred recently. In Egypt, many studies have proven that many bee species including honeybees are under huge threats affecting the agriculture production and plant vegetation. To mitigate this great problem, several attempts were conducted in order to conserve and propagate the most vulnerable solitary bee species through re-nesting them in artificial nests to be used for crop pollination.