Friday, July 1, 2022
SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag - Latest science news from science magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home SCIENCE NEWS Agriculture

Revealing the secret cocoa pollinators

May 3, 2021
in Agriculture
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

International research team led by Göttingen University investigates landscape and farm-level man-agement in cocoa agroforests in Indonesia

IMAGE

Credit: Manuel Toledo

The importance of pollinators to ensure successful harvests and thus global food security is widely acknowledged. However, the specific pollinators for even major crops – such as cocoa – haven’t yet been identified and there remain many questions about sustainability, conservation and plantation management to enhance their populations and, thereby, pollination services. Now an international research team based in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia and led by the University of Göttingen has found that in fact ants and flies – but not ceratopogonid midges as was previously thought – appear to have a crucial role to play. In addition, they found that promoting biodiversity friendly landscapes, leaf-litter and trees providing shade in agroforestry systems were important to enhance tiny cocoa pollinators. The research was published in Biological Conservation.

The team, in collaboration with Tadulako University in Palu, carried out two separate experiments involving 42 cocoa agroforestry farms in the Napu Valley of Central Sulawesi. The work included applying a sticky glue to over 15,000 flowers in more than 500 trees for an eight-month period and recording the identity and abundance of captured flower visitors. In one experiment involving 18 farms, they investigated the effect of the distance between the forest and the farm, and the amount of canopy cover from shade trees, on the abundance of the main pollinators. In the second experiment in 24 different cocoa farms, they measured the effect of leaf-litter management on pollinators. In both experiments they quantified the amount of forest and agroforests surrounding the 42 cocoa farms.

The researchers found that ants were the most common flower-visitors. This highlighted their potential as pollinators whether directly (by transporting pollen), or indirectly (by disturbing pollinators and promoting their movement). The study also shows that preserving biodiversity friendly landscapes, such as forests and agroforests, and promoting agroforestry systems is crucial for pollinator conservation. This in turn pro-motes pollination and sustainable cocoa production. “We were surprised that we did not capture any cerato-pogonid midges, even though these tiny midges were considered the most important pollinators of cocoa. This emphasizes that cocoa pollinators are more diverse than previously known but also that there is still much to learn,” said Dr Manuel Toledo-Hernández, from the University of Göttingen and first author of the study. “Current global cocoa initiatives should consider the role of biodiversity friendly habitats for the con-servation of pollinators, because their pollination services are an ecological alternative towards current commitments on combining high yields with conservation,” added Toledo-Hernández and his coauthors Teja Tscharntke and Thomas C. Wanger.

###

Original publication: M Toledo-Hernández et al, Landscape and farm-level management for conservation of potential pollinators in Indonesian cocoa agroforests, Biological Conservation (2021). DoI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109106, article also available here until 27 May 2021

Contact:

Dr Manuel Toledo-Hernández

University of Göttingen

Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Crop Sciences,

Grisebachstraße 6, 37077 Göttingen, Germany

Tel: +49 (0) 1774472022

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/manuel+toledo-hernandez/542098.html

Media Contact
Melissa Sollich
[email protected]

Original Source

https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/3240.html?id=6246

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109106

Tags: Agricultural Production/EconomicsAgricultureFertilizers/Pest ManagementForestry
Share25Tweet16Share4ShareSendShare
  • nTIDE May 2022 COVID Update: Unemployment Trends for People with and without Disabilities

    nTIDE May 2022 COVID Update: Uncertainty about inflation tempers good news for people with disabilities

    87 shares
    Share 35 Tweet 22
  • A closer look into the emergence of antibiotic resistance in bioaerosols and its monitoring

    67 shares
    Share 27 Tweet 17
  • Wildfires may have sparked ecosystem collapse during Earth’s worst mass extinction

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Hidden in caves: Mineral overgrowths reveal ‘unprecedented’ sea level rise

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Scientists find greenhouse gas warming likely cause of industrial-era sea level rise

    64 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Organoids reveal similarities between myotonic dystrophy type 1 and Rett syndrome

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
ADVERTISEMENT

About us

We bring you the latest science news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Latest NEWS

nTIDE May 2022 COVID Update: Uncertainty about inflation tempers good news for people with disabilities

COVID-19 fattens up our body’s cells to fuel its viral takeover

Native American women, reproductive politics and forced sterilizations

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 190 other subscribers

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Posting....