Global malnutrition overlaps with pollinator-dependent micronutrient production

Abstract

Pollinators contribute around 10% of the economic value of crop production globally, but the contribution of these pollinators to human nutrition is potentially much higher. Crops vary in the degree to which they benefit from pollinators, and many of the most pollinator-dependent crops are also among the richest in micronutrients essential to human health. This study examines regional differences in the pollinator dependence of crop micronutrient content and reveals overlaps between this dependency and the severity of micronutrient deficiency in people around the world. As much as 50% of the production of plant-derived sources of vitamin A requires pollination throughout much of Southeast Asia, whereas other essential micronutrients such as iron and folate have lower dependencies, scattered throughout Africa, Asia and Central America. Micronutrient deficiencies are three times as likely to occur in areas of highest pollination dependence for vitamin A and iron, suggesting that disruptions in pollination could have serious implications for the accessibility of micronutrients for public health. These regions of high nutritional vulnerability are understudied in the pollination literature, and should be priority areas for research related to ecosystem services and human well-being.

Keywords: agriculture; ecosystem services; global; nutrition; pollination; spatial.

Figure 1.

Fractional dependency of micronutrient production on pollination. This represents the proportion of production that is dependent on pollination for (a) vitamin A (in IU, RAE), (b) iron (in g) and (c) folate (in g). This was calculated as the fractional pollinator dependence of each crop grown in a pixel, multiplied by the total production of that crop and the nutrient content of that crop, summed across all crops in each pixel. To aid in visibility, the upper limit of the colour bar is set to the 95th percentile value for each figure.

Figure 2.

Micronutrient production, across a spectrum of pollinator-dependence, for (a) vitamin A (in IU, RAE), (b) iron (in g) and (c) folate (in g). Here, regions that are highly dependent on pollination, identified in figure 1, are further differentiated by the magnitude of their micronutrient production. Total micronutrient production, calculated as the total production of each crop (by weight) multiplied by the nutrient content of that crop, summed across all crops, is denoted by colour intensity, with brighter colours corresponding to more production. This total micronutrient production is plotted against the fractional dependency of micronutrient production on pollination (from figure 1), represented by the colour bar from green to red, with green representing little dependency and red representing maximal dependency. Colours are plotted such that the upper limit of the brightness scale corresponds to 90th percentile nutrient production, to aid visibility.