Insect Crop Pollinators
Insect pollinators are a key component in providing vital ecosystem services to crops and wild plants. Honey bees are regarded as beneficial insects for their crucial role in pollination besides their valuable products like honey, wax, pollen, venom, roya
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M.S. Khan and Manish Kumar Yogi
Contents 14.1 Introduction 14.2 Crop Pollination by Different Groups of Insects 14.3 Conclusion References
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14.1 Introduction Pollination is a prerequisite for fruit and seed set, and in majority of the crop species, this vital service is performed by animals, the insects being the most important among them (Shivanna 2015). Data collected from 200 countries revealed that nearly 75 % of the 115 principal food crops of the world rely on animals for the potential produce, whereas about 25 % are wind- and self-pollinated (Klein et al. 2007). According to Crane and Walker (1983), a significant share of human food in tropical countries comes from insect-dependent crops. Insect pollination services in crop ecosystems increase the yield (Losey and Vaughan 2006; Gallai et al. 2009) and underpin $361 billion of crop production throughout the world (Lautenbach et al. 2012). For maintaining pollination services, diverse fauna of bees (order Hymenoptera) is of greater importance (Kremen et al. 2002), the most important among them being the members of family Apidae (Klein et al. 2007) especially the honey bees. The honey bees have been well recognized by the people as productive insects since ancient times for their common valuable products, honey and wax. The honey bees also provide royal jelly, bee venom, propolis and pollen which along with honey and wax made them as perfect industrial insects. The honey bees are also an integral M.S. Khan (*) • M.K. Yogi Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar 263145, Uttarakhand, India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 Omkar (ed.), Industrial Entomology, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3304-9_14
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component of the natural pollination systems of diverse flora including various crop species, and the benefits obtained through their pollination services are several times more than what we get together from honey and wax. In areas or in commercial crops where existing natural pollinating insect fauna is scarce, desired pollination levels are achieved through managed honey bee pollination systems to get maximum potential produce with good quality. The managed pollination systems using honey bees, stingless bees and some other solitary bees have now become a trade in many parts of the world. The most commonly used bee species in managed pollination services are the European honey bee, Apis mellifera L., and the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana Fabricius. In the last few decades, there has been an increasing demand for pollination services in agriculture which in turn has led to a significant increase in population of managed honey bee hives the world over (Aizen et al. 2008). The honey bees are necessary for the production of many crops including apples, almonds, sweet cherries, plums, prunes, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, melons, etc., and even one third of our daily diet depends on honey bees (Muss
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