Simon G Potts

University of Reading · School of Agriculture, Policy and Development

The phenology, or timing of key life-history events, of many globally important crops and the insects that pollinate them are shifting because of the changing climate. Where these temporal shifts occur at different rates or in different directions, it induces a risk of phenological mismatch, potentially reducing the quality and quantity of crop pro...

In recent years winter sown oilseed rape (OSR) production has decreased as the result of loss of control of an insect pest, the cabbage stem flea beetle (Psylliodes chrysocephala L.), due to the pest developing resistance to pyrethroid insecticides, and the EU ban on the use of neonicotinoid seed dressings. There is therefore an urgent need to deve...

Context Agri-environment schemes support land management interventions that benefit biodiversity, environmental objectives, and other public goods. Process-based model simulations suggest the English scheme, as implemented in 2016, increased wild bee pollination services to pollinator-dependent crops and non-crop areas in a geographically heterogen...

Most bee species are ground-nesters, yet knowledge on the nesting behaviour of this diverse group remains sparse. Evidence on the effectiveness of ground-nesting bee species as crop pollinators is growing, but there is limited information on their nesting habits and preferences and how to manage habitats to enhance populations on farms. In this stu...

Wild bees are declining, mainly due to the expansion of urban habitats that have led to land-use changes. Effects of urbanization on wild bee communities are still unclear, as shown by contrasting reports on their species and functional diversities in urban habitats. To address this current controversy, we built a large dataset, merging 16 surveys...

Supporting biodiversity in agricultural landscapes is key from both a conservation and ecosystem services perspective. Planting flower margins along crop field edges is one of the most established approaches to try and improve habitat and resources for insect pollinators on farms. Whilst there is growing evidence that these margins can result in in...

Food system resilience has multiple dimensions. We draw on food system and resilience concepts and review resilience framings of different communities. We present four questions to frame food system resilience (Resilience of what? Resilience to what? Resilience from whose perspective? Resilience for how long?) and three approaches to enhancing resi...

Food system resilience has multiple dimensions. We draw on food system and resilience concepts and review resilience framings of different communities. We present four questions to frame food system resilience (Resilience of what? Resilience to what? Resilience from whose perspective? Resilience for how long?) and three approaches to enhancing resi...

There is increasing evidence that farmers in many areas are achieving below maximum yields due to insufficient pollination. Practical and effective approaches are needed to maintain wild pollinator populations within agroecosystems so they can deliver critical pollination services which underpin crop production. We established nesting and wildflowe...

Disturbances alter biodiversity via their specific characteristics, including severity and extent in the landscape, which act at different temporal and spatial scales. Biodiversity response to disturbance also depends on the community characteristics and habitat requirements of species. Untangling the mechanistic interplay of these factors has guid...

To provide a complete portrayal of the multiple factors negatively impacting insects in agricultural landscapes it is necessary to assess the concurrent incidence, magnitude, and interactions among multiple stressors over substantial biogeographical scales. Trans-national ecological field investigations with wide-ranging stakeholders typically enco...

Drosophila suzukii (SWD) poses a threat to soft and stone fruit globally. SWD inhabits non‐crop areas adjacent to farms from where it moves into crops to cause damage. Effective IPM control strategies, considering both the crop and non‐crop area, are needed to control this economically important pest. We conducted a meta‐analysis to quantify the im...

Organic mulches are a traditional method of groundcover management in temperate commercial orchards, now largely replaced by herbicides and synthetic fertilisers. As a potential contribution to improving orchard sustainability, we hypothesised that the addition of organic mulches would: (H1) improve soil fertility and lead to greater tree growth an...

Human driven environmental changes increase the concentrations of polluting reactive compounds in the troposphere, such as ozone and nitrogen oxides. These changes lead to biodiversity losses and alter plant physiology and plant-pollinator interactions, essential for pollination services, with potential consequences for agricultural production. Her...

Tropical forests in India have declined at an alarming rate over the past century, with extensive literature focusing on the high contributions of agricultural expansions to deforestation, while the effects of climate change have largely been overlooked. Climate change effects, such as increasing temperatures, drought and flooding have already occu...

Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop y...

Background: Natural enemy pest control (NPC) is becoming more desirable as restrictions increase on pesticide use. Carabid beetles are proven agents of NPC, controlling pests and weeds in crop areas. Agro-ecological measures can be effective for boosting carabid abundance and associated NPC, however the benefits of specific interventions to produc...

Research into pollinators in managed landscapes has recently combined approaches of pollination ecology and landscape ecology, because key stressors are likely to interact across wide areas. While laboratory and field experiments are valuable for furthering understanding, studies are required to investigate the interacting drivers of pollinator hea...

Agri-environment schemes are programmes where landholders enter into voluntary agreements (typically with governments) to manage agricultural land for environmental protection and nature conservation objectives. Previous work at local scale has shown that these features can provide additional floral and nesting resources to support wild pollinators...

Pollinator declines have prompted efforts to assess how land-use change affects insect pollinators and pollination services in agricultural landscapes. Yet many tools to measure insect pollination services, require substantial landscape-scale data and technical expertise. In expert workshops, 3 straightforward methods (desk-based method, field surv...

A two page summary of the article designed for wider audiences or very busy academics. Please feel free to distribute.

• Wild bees provide a critical ecosystem service by pollinating globally important crops. Documented bee declines, notably in agricultural landscapes, therefore threaten future food security. Yet, evaluations of methods to inventory bees are rarely carried out in different crops or focus specifically upon crop pollinating species. • We utilise stan...

Background and aims – Agricultural intensification and loss of farmland heterogeneity have contributed to population declines of wild bees and other pollinators, which may have caused subsequent declines in insect-pollinated wild plants. Material and methods – Using data from 37 studies on 22 pollinator-dependent wild plant species across Europe, w...

Renewable energy deployment has accelerated exponentially, taking up a growing area of land at a time of increasing land use pressure and environmental degradation. Land use change for renewable energy can have positive and negative environmental consequences, but robustly quantifying the effects is challenging. Here, we evaluate the monetary benef...

Sown wildflower areas are increasingly recommended as an agri-environmental intervention measure, but evidence for their success is limited to particular insect groups or hampered by the challenges of establishing seed mixes and maintaining flower abundance over time. We conducted a replicated experiment to establish wildflower areas to support ins...

A plain langauge 2 page overview of the paper "Opportunities to reduce pollination deficits and address production shortfalls in an important insect-pollinated crop" designed for non-acedemic audiences (or very busy acedemics). Please feel free to pass this along.

Pollinator decline has attracted global attention and substantial efforts are underway to respond through national pollinator strategies and action plans. These policy responses require clarity on what is driving pollinator decline and what risks it generates for society in different parts of the world. Using a formal expert elicitation process, we...

This is a two page infographic summary of the main paper aimed at policymakers and staff who simply don't have the time to readv the full paper. Please feel free to pass it around.

The importance of wild bees for crop pollination is well established, but less is known about which species contribute to service delivery to inform agricultural management, monitoring and conservation. Using sites in Great Britain as a case study, we use a novel qualitative approach combining ecological information and field survey data to establi...

Pollinators face multiple pressures and there is evidence of populations in decline. As demand for insect‐pollinated crops increases, crop production is threatened by shortfalls in pollination services. Understanding the extent of current yield deficits due to pollination and identifying opportunities to protect or improve crop yield and quality th...

PoshBee is a 5-year funded project (2018-2023) that aims to support healthy bee populations, sustainable beekeeping, and consequently pollination for crops and wildflowers across Europe. To do this we take a range of approaches, from the laboratory to the field, from molecules to ecosystems, and from fundamental science to risk assessment. This doc...

Renewable power capacity is increasing globally in response to energy decarbonisation, with solar photovoltaic (PV) projected to be the dominant renewable. A significant proportion of solar PV is deployed as ground-mounted solar parks with potential implications for the hosting ecosystem. Given their relatively rapid introduction, the impacts on la...

1. Pollinators experience large spatio‐temporal fluctuations in resource availability when mass‐flowering crops are rotated with resource‐poor cereal crops. Yet, few studies have considered the effect this has on pollinator population stability, nor how this might be mitigated to maintain consistent crop pollination services. 2. We assess the poten...

Single page summary of Vanderplank et al (2021) - contains a QR code for accessing the paper

A two page summary of the paper - this is designed for a non-acedemic audience. Pleasse feel free to disseminate. There is a QR Code for the paper itself included.

Current global change substantially threatens pollinators, which directly impacts the pollination services underpinning the stability, structure and functioning of ecosystems. Among these threats, many synergistic drivers such as habitat destruction and fragmentation, increasing use of agrochemicals, decreasing resource diversity as well as climate...

A recurrent concern in nature conservation is the potential competition for forage plants between wild bees and managed honey bees. Specifically, that the highly sophisticated system of recruitment and large perennial colonies of honey bees quickly exhaust forage resources leading to the local extirpation of wild bees. However, different species of...

While an increasing number of studies indicate that the range, diversity and abundance of many wild pollinators has declined, the global area of pollinator-dependent crops has significantly increased over the last few decades. Crop pollination studies to date have mainly focused on either identifying different guilds pollinating various crops, or o...

While an increasing number of studies indicate that the range, diversity and abundance of many wild pollinators has declined, the global area of pollinator-dependent crops has significantly increased over the last few decades. Crop pollination studies to date have mainly focused on either identifying different guilds pollinating various crops, or o...

Evidence of declines in wild and managed pollinators and pollination services is increasingly being documented around the world. This has driven the development of a wide range of practical management and policy responses which were reviewed in the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) global asses...

Insect pollination increases the yield and quality of many crops and therefore, understanding the role of insect pollinators in crop production is necessary to sustainably increase yields. Avocado Persea americana benefits from insect pollination, however, a better understanding of the role of pollinators and their contribution to the production of...

Technology is transforming societies worldwide. A major innovation is the emergence of robotics and autonomous systems(RAS), which have the potential to revolutionize cities for both people and nature. Nonetheless, the opportunities and challenges associated with RAS for urban ecosystems have yet to be considered systematically. Here, we report the...

Floral resources (nectar and pollen) provide food for insect pollinators but have declined in the countryside due to land use change. Given widespread pollinator loss, it is important that we quantify their food supply to help develop conservation actions. While nectar resources have been measured in rural landscapes, equivalent data are lacking fo...

Wild bee populations are threatened by current agricultural practices in many parts of the world, which may put pollination services and crop yields at risk. Loss of pollination services can potentially be predicted by models that link bee abundances with landscape‐scale land‐use, but there is little knowledge on the degree to which these statistic...

Technology is transforming societies worldwide. A major innovation is the emergence of robotics and autonomous systems (RAS), which have the potential to revolutionize cities for both people and nature. Nonetheless, the opportunities and challenges associated with RAS for urban ecosystems have yet to be considered systematically. Here, we report th...

PoshBee is a 5-year funded project (2018-2023) that aims to support healthy bee populations, sustainable beekeeping, and consequently pollination for crops and wildflowers across Europe. To do this we take a range of approaches, from the laboratory to the field, from molecules to ecosystems, and from fundamental science to risk assessment. This doc...

Many crops are known to be dependent on biotic pollination, but knowledge gaps remain regarding the extent of this dependence, how it varies between crop varieties, and the implications of biotic pollination for crop quality. Data is also lacking on the prevalence and extent of pollination deficits and the ability of the surrounding pollinator comm...

Multiple anthropogenic challenges threaten nature’s contributions to human well-being. Agricultural expansion and conventional intensification are degrading biodiversity and ecosystem functions, thereby undermining the natural foundations on which agriculture is itself built. Averting the worst effects of global environmental change and assuring ec...

This annex contains the information from stakeholder consultation we used to arrive at our final scheme designs in the main paper.

This annex is simply a list of the experts that we surveyed for the costs saved portion of the paper. They have all been sent a copy of the published paper.

This is a two page infographic version of the paper itself, designed for non-acedemic readers. Please feel free to distribute widely

This annex covers the responses to the exert questionnaire (Annex 5) - note that we did not use all the information we provided in this study because not all of it was readilly quantifiable.

This annex covers the methodology used in the power analysis to determine the size of the network we used in the main paper itself.

This annex covers the overlaps between the respones that the experts (annex 4) gave to the questionnaire (annex 5 and 6) and the site networks we proposed.

This annex is the survey sent to experts (annex 4) for the "costs saved" portion of the paper. Reminder that experts only saw 3 of the 8 reserach questions each to avoid overloading them. The survey was done in word or excel depending on respondent preferences but if you want to replicate it, it can be made in Bristol Online Survey, Survey Monkey o...

This annex covers the value of pollination services at a 100% loss of pollinators as opposed to the 30% loss that we use in the main paper.

This annex covers a few additional assumptions that were made duirng the economic valuation of polination services. These were not practical to overcome at the time but we hope can be relaxed in the future should better data become available

This annex covers the full costs of monitoring across all sites and years, buidling on the cost data from Annex 3 and the ower analysis in Annex 2 as well as the information in the main methods of the paper.

This is a complete review of all the literature concerning pollinator dependence in UK crops. If you are looking to do any sort of study on these crops, please feel free to use this as a starting point/reference list. New work is badly needed on runner beans and linseed in particular. There is also information on the price data transformations and...

This annex breaks down all the cost data we used in estimating the costs of the scheme (and the costs saved from having such a scheme). They are based on our typical suppliers in the UK so if you are based elsewhere, bear in mind that the UK is likely to be more expensive than many other countries so please either flag this up if you convert the fi...

This annex covers the full mathematical proof of the consumer surplus model we used in the paper. Please note that it is different from the one used in Gallai et al., 2009.

This annex covers the full cst benefit ratios of each monitoring scheme relative to the value of pollination services and the costs of reserach saved from having the scheme.

Pollinator decline has attracted global attention, and substantial efforts are underway to respond, through national pollinator strategies and action plans. These policy responses require clarity on what is driving pollinator decline, and what risks it generates for society, in different parts of the world. Using a formal expert elicitation process...

This is a two page infographic version of the paper itself, designed for non-acedemic readers. Please feel free to distribute widely

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 informati...

Modern fruit production has successfully increased yields and fruit quality to meet market demands mainly through intensification and the use of Plant Protection Products (PPPs). Due to the associated environmental impacts and consumers increasingly demanding food produced more sustainably, the tree fruit sector is seeking to reduce its reliance on...

Insect pollination is a globally important ecosystem service, contributing to crop yields, production stability and the maintenance of wild plant populations. Ironically, agriculture is one of the major global drivers of wild insect pollinator decline. At the same time, increasing human population is driving ever greater demands on crop production....

Floral plantings are promoted to foster ecological intensification of agriculture through provision-ing of ecosystem services. However, a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of different floral plantings, their characteristics and consequences for crop yield is lacking. Here we quantified the impacts of flower strips and hedgerows on pest...

1. Pollination is a key ecosystem service for global agriculture but evidence of polli-nator population declines is growing. Reliable spatial modelling of pollinator abundance is essential if we are to identify areas at risk of pollination service deficit and effectively target resources to support pollinator populations. Many models exist which pr...

Legumes are important crops for food security, consumed by millions of people especially in Africa where they are an essential protein source and provide key vitamins and minerals. Most legumes depend on insect pollination and natural pest regulation for sufficient yields, however, there is emerging evidence that yield gaps caused by lack of pollin...

This report presents the proposal for an EU Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (EU-PoMS), based on the findings of an expert group of 21 people from 12 European countries. The EU-PoMS delivers of a cost-effective Core Scheme, which includes the most relevant taxa, is able to detect changes in the status of pollinators, has EU-wide coverage, and uses stan...