Quantifying biotic interactions at scale is critical to understanding ecosystem functions, such as plant-pollinator interactions. Here, we demonstrate how woody plant functional traits and vegetation structure gathered with remote sensing can aid in predicting plant-pollinator network indices from fine to broad spatial extents. We analysed 209 tropical plant-pollinator networks, where vegetation characteristics were generated using spectral and LiDAR data. We found that pollination network structures were correlated to plant traits reflective of drought-adaptive strategies and nutrient availability. Networks were predicted to be more nested and less specialised with increasing leaf nitrogen content. Further, relationships between leaf thickness, photosynthetic capacity, and water content indicate that networks may be more modular and less connected under arid, high-light conditions where plants invest in water-conserving tissues yet maintain high photosynthetic rates. Our findings reveal plant functional strategies as underlying environmental mechanisms that structure plant-pollinator networks, paving the way to predict interactions using remote sensing.

ABSTRACTLand use change threatens global biodiversity and compromises ecosystem functions, including pollination and food production. Reduced taxonomic α‐diversity is often reported under land use change, yet the impacts could be different at larger spatial scales (i.e., γ‐diversity), either due to reduced β‐diversity amplifying diversity loss or increased β‐diversity dampening diversity loss. Additionally, studies often focus on taxonomic diversity, while other important biodiversity components, including phylogenetic diversity, can exhibit differential responses. Here, we evaluated how agricultural and urban land use alters the taxonomic and phylogenetic α‐, β‐, and γ‐diversity of an important pollinator taxon—bees. Using a multicontinental dataset of 3117 bee assemblages from 157 studies, we found that taxonomic α‐diversity was reduced by 16%–18% in both agricultural and urban habitats relative to natural habitats. Phylogenetic α‐diversity was decreased by 11%–12% in agricultural and urban habitats. Compared with natural habitats, taxonomic and phylogenetic β‐diversity increased by 11% and 6% in urban habitats, respectively, but exhibited no systematic change in agricultural habitats. We detected a 22% decline in taxonomic γ‐diversity and a 17% decline in phylogenetic γ‐diversity in agricultural habitats, but γ‐diversity of urban habitats was not significantly different from natural habitats. These findings highlight the threat of agricultural expansions to large‐scale bee diversity due to systematic γ‐diversity decline. In addition, while both urbanization and agriculture lead to consistent declines in α‐diversity, their impacts on β‐ or γ‐diversity vary, highlighting the need to study the effects of land use change at multiple scales.

Context Managing landscapes to increase multiple services provision in search of higher agricultural yield can be an alternative to agricultural intensification. Nonetheless, to properly guide management, we need to better understand how landscape structure affects multiple services at different scales. Objectives Focused on synergies and trade-offs in real-world landscapes, we investigated how and at which scale landscape features related to the supply, demand and flow of services act as a common driver of pollination and pest control in coffee plantations. Methods Considering landscapes in an important coffee-producing region in Brazil, we tested the effects of forest and coffee cover , distance to forest , forest-coffee edge density and coffee edge diversity at multiple scales on pollination and pest control by birds, bats and ants. Results Coffee edge diversity (number of land uses in contact with coffee) was an important driver of pollination and pest control, being consistently relevant at local scales (up to 300 m). However, services were also affected by other landscape features and the ‘scale of effect’ of these relationships varied. Additionally, results show the complex nature of pest control once the direction of effect revealed services and disservices. Conclusions Besides reinforcing the importance of known landscape effects, this study adds to previous studies by showcasing the relevance of diverse land uses around coffee crops as a common driver of pollination and pest control provision by different species. Moreover, we highlight how understanding the combined local and landscape effects may aid in offsetting disservices and tackling the variety of ‘scales of effect’ found.

Medusozoa (Cnidaria) are characterized by diverse life cycles, with different semaphoronts (medusa, medusoid, fixed gonophore, polyp) representing the sexual phase and carrying the gametes. Although egg size is often considered a proxy to understand reproductive and developmental traits of medusozoans, understanding of the processes influencing egg size variation in the group under an evolutionary context is still limited. We carried out a comprehensive review of the variation of egg size in Medusozoa to test whether this variation is related to biological/sexual or environmental traits. Egg size presents a strong phylogenetic signal (λ = 0.79, K = 0.67), explaining why closely related species with different reproductive strategies and different individual sizes have similar egg sizes. However, variation in egg size is influenced by the number of eggs, depth and temperature, with larger eggs frequently present in species with few eggs (1–15), in deep-sea species and in cold-water species. Conversely, the production of small eggs among cold-water species of Staurozoa might be associated with the development of a small benthic larvae in this group. Our study reinforces that egg sizes respond to reproductive and environmental traits, although egg size is highly conserved within medusa classes.

Pollination is a vitally important function in nature and becomes an ecosystem service because it influences the food and nutritional security for people. However, the contribution of different functional traits of insects for pollen transport of plants is still poorly known. We explore the relationship between pollinator insect functional traits and the transport of pollen of sweet granadilla ( Passiflora ligularis Juss) in eight crops. We sampled flower-visiting insects of this crop and recorded 10 functional traits (five by direct measurements and five from the literature) that were related to the amount of pollen carried by each insect. Bees (Apidae) were not only the most abundant insects but also the ones that loaded the highest amounts of pollen. Within these, the most abundant species was the exotic common honeybee ( Apis mellifera (Linnaeus)) making up almost half of the specimens collected; however, this bee carried less pollen grains than other native bees. Bombus hortulanus (Smith) was one of the large-bodied native bees that carried more sweet granadilla pollen, despite not being an abundant species in the community. Body size was the most important trait determining the transport of sweet granadilla pollen, while the traits related to body hairs were not significant for the body’s pollen load. None of the functional traits evaluated was influenced by taxonomy at species-level. Our results suggest that large body sizes in bees are the most important traits in granadilla pollen transport, regardless of other changes in composition and structure of pollinating insect assemblages in the crop.

Restoration of native tropical forests is crucial for protecting biodiversity and ecosystem functions, such as carbon stock capacity. However, little is known about the contribution of early stages of forest regeneration to crop productivity through the enhancement of ecosystem services, such as crop pollination and pest control. Using data from 610 municipalities along the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (30 m spatial resolution), we evaluated if young regenerating forests (YRFs) (less than 20 years old) are positively associated with coffee yield and whether such a relationship depends on the amount of preserved forest in the surroundings of the coffee fields. We found that regenerating forest alone was not associated with variations in coffee yields. However, the presence of YRF (within a 500 m buffer) was positively related to higher coffee yields when the amount of preserved forest in a 2 km buffer is above a 20% threshold cover. These results further reinforce that regional coffee yields are influenced by changes in biodiversity-mediated ecosystem services, which are explained by the amount of mature forest in the surrounding of coffee fields. We argue that while regenerating fragments may contribute to increased connectivity between remnants of forest fragments and crop fields in landscapes with a minimum amount of forest (20%), older preserved forests (more than 20 years) are essential for sustaining pollinator and pest enemy’s populations. These results highlight the potential time lag of at least 20 years of regenerating forests’ in contributing to the provision of ecosystem services that affect coffee yields (e.g. pollination and pest control). We emphasize the need to implement public policies that promote ecosystem restoration and ensure the permanence of these new forests over time.

Well-designed approaches to ecological restoration can benefit nature and society. This is particularly the case in tropical agroecosystems, where restoration can provide substantial socioecological benefits at relatively low costs. To success-fully restore tropical agroecosystems and maximise benefits, initiatives must begin by considering 'who' should be involved in and benefit from restoration, and 'what', 'where', and 'how' restoration should occur. Based on collective expe-rience of restoring tropical agroecosystems worldwide, we present nine actions to guide future restoration of these systems, supported by case studies that demon-strate our actions being used successfully in practice and highlighting cases where poorly designed restoration has been damaging. We call for increased restoration activity in tropical agroecosystems during the current UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

Animal pollinators are globally threatened by anthropogenic land use change and agricultural intensification. The yield of many food crops is therefore negatively impacted because they benefit from biotic pollination. This is especially the case in the tropics. For instance, fruit set of Coffea arabica has been shown to increase by 10–30% in plantations with a high richness of bee species, possibly influenced by the availability of surrounding forest habitat. Here, we performed a global literature review to (1) assess how much animal pollination enhances coffee fruit set, and to (2) examine the importance of the amount of forest cover, distance to nearby forest and forest canopy density for bee species richness and coffee fruit set. Using a systematic literature review, we identified eleven case studies with a total of 182 samples where fruit set of C. arabica was assessed. We subsequently gathered forest data for all study sites from satellite imagery. We modelled the effects of open (all forest with a canopy density of ≥25%), closed (≥50%) and dense (≥75%) forests on pollinator richness and fruit set of coffee. Overall, we found that animal pollination increases coffee fruit set by ~18% on average. In only one of the case studies, regression results indicate a positive effect of dense forest on coffee fruit set, which increased with higher forest cover and shorter distance to the forest. Against expectations, forest cover and distance to open forest were not related to bee species richness and fruit set. In summary, we provide strong empirical support for the notion that animal pollinators increase coffee fruit set. Forest proximity had little overall influence on bee richness and coffee fruit set, except when farms were surrounded by dense tropical forests, potentially because these may provide high-quality habitats for bees pollinating coffee. We, therefore, advocate that more research is done to understand the biodiversity value of dense forest for pollinators, notably assessing the mechanisms underlying the importance of forest for pollinators and their pollination services.

1. Enhancing biodiversity-based ecosystem services can generate win-win opportunities for conservation and agricultural production. Pollination and pest control are two essential agricultural services provided by mobile organisms, many depending on native vegetation networks beyond the farm scale. Many studies have evaluated the effects of landscape changes on such services at small scales. However, several landscape management policies (e.g. selection of conservation sites) and associated funding allocation occur at much larger spatial scales (e.g. state or regional level). Therefore, it is essential to understand whether the links between landscape, ecosystem services and crop yields are robust across broad and heterogeneous regional conditions. 2. Here, we used data from 610 Brazilian municipalities within the Atlantic Forest region (similar to 50 Mha) and show that forest is a crucial factor affecting coffee yields, regardless of regional variations in soil, climate and management practices. We found forest cover surrounding coffee fields was better at predicting coffee yields than forest cover at the municipality level. Moreover, the positive effect of forest cover on coffee yields was stronger for Coffea canephora, the species with higher pollinator dependence, than for Coffea arabica. Overall, coffee yields were highest when they were near to forest fragments, mostly in landscapes with intermediate to high forest cover (>20%), above the biodiversity extinction threshold. 3. Coffee cover was the most relevant management practice associated with coffee yield prediction. An increase in crop area was associated with a higher yield, but mostly in high forest covers municipalities. Other localized management practices like irrigation, pesticide use, organic manure and honeybee density had little importance in predicting coffee yields than landscape structure parameters. Neither the climatic or topographic variables were as relevant as forest cover at predicting coffee yields. 4. Synthesis and application. Our work provides evidence that landscape relationships with ecosystem service provision are consistent across regions with different agricultural practices and environmental conditions. These results provide a way in which landscape management can articulate small landscape management with regional conservation goals. Policies directed towards increasing landscape interspersion of coffee fields with forest remnants favour spillover process, and can thus benefit the provision of biodiversity-based ecosystem services, increasing agricultural productivity. Such interventions can generate win-win situations favouring biodiversity conservation and increased crop yields across large regions.

Inequalities in benefits from ecosystem services (ES) challenge the achievement of sustainability goals, because they increase the vulnerability of socio-ecological systems to climate hazards. Yet the unequal effects of changes in ES, and of climate change more generally, on human well-being (HWB) are still poorly accounted for in decision-making around adaptation, particularly in tropical countries. Here, we investigate these dynamics through the lens of local peoples' perceptions of ES in relation to human well-being (HWB), and how these are affected by climate change in three distinct regional case studies in the Atlantic Forest in Southeast of Brazil. Through structured questionnaires, we found that the local perceptions of important ES are region-dependent, particularly identifying services regulating local climate and air quality, water flow and quality, food provisioning, and cultural services of landscape esthetics related to forest regeneration. HWB was expressed through material (e.g., economic security, environmental conditions) and higher accounts of non-material (e.g., feelings, health and social connections) dimensions. Specific environmental changes were identified by 95% of those responding, 40% of whom included climate change as one of these. When asked about climate directly, 97% of those responding identified relevant changes in regionally relevant ways. Rising temperatures, unbalanced seasons, altered rainfall patterns, drought, increase of extreme events, and sea level rise are negatively affecting both material and non-material dimensions of HWB across regions. These perceived changes aligned with observed and projected climate changes in the regions. Benefits from ES accrue for HWB at different scales depending on the specific ES and region. For example, crop production by small farmers or exported in sugar cane, water captured for agricultural irrigation or used for urban supplies, and fish resources for local consumption and lifestyle or as a recreational attraction for visitors. Policy choices about such balances will affect local vulnerabilities to the expected future climate and other environmental changes in the region. This place fine-scale observations and the empowerment of local knowledge at the core of policy decisions about adaptation to support a climate-resilient future for traditional communities and small farmers.

Setting aside private land is an essential component of the biodiversity crisis response. In Brazil, landowners are required to have Legal Reserves (LR) (20%-80% of their property set aside for native vegetation) which, if degraded, need to be restored. Alternatively, landowners can compensate for an LR deficit by purchasing surplus credits. Each landowner can define the location and spatial arrangement of their LR, affecting the reserve's ability to maintain biodiversity and provide ecosystem services (ES). We used hierarchical models to determine drivers for the amount and location of those LR in 3622 farms. The likelihood of setting aside part of the farm as LR (avoiding off-farm compensation) increased with farm size and extent of native vegetation cover, particularly for riparian areas and steep slopes, where conserving vegetation is also mandated in what are called Areas of Permanent Protection (APP). Properties with APP were more likely to meet the full LR requirement within their areas if located in areas of higher transportation costs and lower agricultural suitability. Within properties, the location of LR was mostly in areas with low agricultural suitability, high transportation cost, and close to APP. Landowners' decisions intend to maximize property income and reduce restoration costs, resulting in a spatial pattern similar to public protected areas - usually located on marginal land for agriculture. These areas do not necessarily provide the greatest biodiversity and ES benefits, suggesting that government interventions may be needed to encourage landowners to set aside native vegetation in ways that maximize conservation and ES outcomes.

Pollen is the main protein source for honeybee brood and so colony development relies heavily on the availability of pollen in the environment. Intensification of agriculture and climate seasonality are known to alter honeybee pollen intake in temperate regions through changes in resource availability; however, little is known about how honeybees respond to such environmental factors in tropical regions. Pollen collected by honeybees was sampled from apiaries in a Neotropical highland region of Colombia. Pollen species were identified and the effects of landscape diversity, forest area and mean monthly precipitation on the pollen intake by honeybees were evaluated for all pollen species together and pollen species segregated according to forest and anthropic areas. Honeybees were found to be much more associated with anthropic than forest pollen species regardless of landscape structure or precipitation. However, pollen intake from all species and forest species responded positively to landscape diversity and forest area. Precipitation was found not to be related to the overall amount and overall richness of pollen collected by honeybees. Nonetheless, overall pollen diversity was negatively affected by precipitation in less diverse landscapes, whereas anthropic pollen diversity was negatively affected by precipitation in more forested landscapes.

The provision of ecosystem services is inherently spatial. Landscape structure affects service provision through multiple landscape-level processes, such as fragmentation, edge and connectivity effects. These processes can affect areas of ecosystem service supply and demand, and the flows linking those areas. Despite the emergence of sophisticated spatial ecosystem service assessments in the last two decades, we show through a literature review that landscape-level processes are still rarely considered in a comprehensive way. Even when they are considered, landscape effects are mostly limited to landscape composition, and configuration effects are underrepresented. Furthermore, most studies infer ecosystem service provision by only evaluating supply, ignoring demand and flows. Here we present a simple conceptual framework that illustrates how to incorporate landscape-level processes in the assessment of the different components of the service provision chain (supply, demand and flows). Using simulations, we evaluated how estimations of ecosystem service provision change when considering different landscape processes and discussed the implications of disregarding landscape effects. However, to fully implement the framework, a series of challenges linked to mapping and quantifying supply and demand, defining adequate scales of analysis, measuring flows, and parameterizing models for different types of services, still need to be overcome. To promote an adequate use and management of ecosystem services, it is essential to better incorporate landscape processes in ecosystem service assessments. This will lead to more quantitatively accurate and spatially precise estimates.

Context As agricultural demands for land continues to expand, strategies are urgently needed to balance agricultural production with biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision in agricultural landscapes. Objectives We used a factorial landscape design to assess the relative contributions of forest proximity and local forest cover to bee diversity and the provision of coffee pollination services. Methods We quantified bee diversity and fruit set in 24 sun-grown coffee fields in Southeast Region of Brazil that were selected following a factorial sampling design to test the independent effects of local forest cover (in a radius of 400 m) and proximity to forest fragments. To assess the impact of landscape simplification, we also evaluated local coffee cover. Results Bee richness and abundance were higher in the proximity of forest fragments, but only bee abundance decreased when the coffee cover dominated the surrounding landscapes. Coffee fruit set was 16% higher overall with bee visitations compared with bee exclusion and increased to 20% when coffee bushes were near forest fragments, and the coffee cover was low. Surprisingly, local forest cover did not affect the bee community or coffee fruit set. Conclusion Our results provide clear evidence that the proximity of coffee crops to forest fragments can affect the abundance and richness of bees visiting the coffee flowers and thereby facilitate the provision of pollination services. The positive association between forest proximity and fruit set reinforces the importance of natural vegetation in enhancing bee diversity and, therefore, in the provision of pollination services. The negative effect of coffee cover on fruit set at the local scale suggests that the service demand can surpass the capacity of pollinators to provide it. These effects were independent of the local forest cover, although all studied landscapes had more than 20% remaining forest cover (within a 2 km radius), which is considered the extinction threshold for Atlantic Forest species. Interspersion of forest fragments and coffee plantations in regions with more than 20% of forest cover left could thus be a useful landscape management target for facilitating pollinator flows to coffee crops and thus for increasing coffee yields.

Male flowers of the wind-pollinated, dioecious shrub Boehmeria caudata Sw. release pollen explosively, possibly stimulated by anther dehydration in response to temporarily dry conditions coupled with hydrostatic pressure in the filament. In the Brazilian Atlantic rain forest, the daily frequency of male flower anthesis peaked between 1000–1200 h (GMT −3) and was positively correlated with rising temperature, wind currents, and direct insolation, but negatively correlated with relative humidity. A generalized linear mixed model predicts the probability of pollen release under different conditions of relative humidity and wind. Receptive stigmas on female flowers were found at any time of day: individual stigmas were receptive (H 2 O 2 test) for at least two days. Beetles and halictid bees were observed feeding on pollen from staminate flowers, but probably did not affect pollination because they did not seem to visit pistillate flowers. Individual plants of this apparently ruderal species grow along road edges and show aggregated (clumped) spatial dispersion. The overall sex ratio we found was 29 females to 43 males, with one monoecious plant in a total transect distance of 6319 m. Pollen traps were placed on the female plants to measure pollen arrival. Pollen capture was higher on the more exposed road-facing side and positively related to male plant density.

Across the globe, wild bees are threatened by ongoing natural habitat loss, risking the maintenance of plant biodiversity and agricultural production. Despite the ecological and economic importance of wild bees and the fact that several species are now managed for pollination services worldwide, little is known about how land use and beekeeping practices jointly influence gene flow. Using stingless bees as a model system, containing wild and managed species that are presumed to be particularly susceptible to habitat degradation, here we examine the main drivers of tropical bee gene flow. We employ a novel landscape genetic approach to analyse data from 135 populations of 17 stingless bee species distributed across diverse tropical biomes within the Americas. Our work has important methodological implications, as we illustrate how a maximum-likelihood approach can be applied in a meta-analysis framework to account for multiple factors, and weight estimates by sample size. In contrast to previously held beliefs, gene flow was not related to body size or deforestation, and isolation by geographic distance (IBD) was significantly affected by management, with managed species exhibiting a weaker IBD than wild ones. Our study thus reveals the critical importance of beekeeping practices in shaping the patterns of genetic differentiation across bee species. Additionally, our results show that many stingless bee species maintain high gene flow across heterogeneous landscapes. We suggest that future efforts to preserve wild tropical bees should focus on regulating beekeeping practices to maintain natural gene flow and enhancing pollinator-friendly habitats, prioritizing species showing a limited dispersal ability.