• Energy Research

International audience; 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 ecosystem benefits, requires a transformation of agriculture. Alternative agricultural systems to conventional intensification exist, ranging from adjustments to efficiency (e.g. sustainable intensification) to a redesign (e.g. ecological intensification, climate-smart agriculture) of the farm management system. These alternatives vary in their reliance on nature or technology, the level of systemic change required to operate, and impacts on biodiversity, landscapes and agricultural production. Different socio-economic, ecological and political settings mean there is no universal solution, instead there are a suite of interoperable practices that can be adapted to different contexts to maximise efficiency, sustainability and resilience. Social, economic, technological and demographic issues will influence the form of sustainable agriculture and effects on landscapes and biodiversity. These include: (1) the socio-technical-ecological architecture of agricultural and food systems and trends such as urbanisation in affecting the mode of production, diets, lifestyles and attitudes; (2) emerging technologies, such as gene editing, synthetic biology and 3D bioprinting of meat; and (3) the scale or state of the existing farm system, especially pertinent for smallholder agriculture. Agricultural transformation will require multifunctional landscape planning with cross-sectoral and participatory management to avoid unintended consequences and ultimately depends on people's capacity to accept new ways of operating in response to the current environmental crisis.

AbstractUnderstanding how climate change can affect crop‐pollinator systems helps predict potential geographical mismatches between a crop and its pollinators, and therefore identify areas vulnerable to loss of pollination services. We examined the distribution of orchard species (apples, pears, plums and other top fruits) and their pollinators in Great Britain, for present and future climatic conditions projected for 2050 under the SRES A1B Emissions Scenario. We used a relative index of pollinator availability as a proxy for pollination service. At present, there is a large spatial overlap between orchards and their pollinators, but predictions for 2050 revealed that the most suitable areas for orchards corresponded to low pollinator availability. However, we found that pollinator availability may persist in areas currently used for fruit production, which are predicted to provide suboptimal environmental suitability for orchard species in the future. Our results may be used to identify mitigation options to safeguard orchard production against the risk of pollination failure in Great Britain over the next 50 years; for instance, choosing fruit tree varieties that are adapted to future climatic conditions, or boosting wild pollinators through improving landscape resources. Our approach can be readily applied to other regions and crop systems, and expanded to include different climatic scenarios.

AbstractGlobal pollinator declines threaten food production and natural ecosystems. The drivers of declines are complicated and driven by numerous factors such as pesticide use, loss of habitat, rising pathogens due to commercial bee keeping and climate change. Halting and reversing pollinator declines will require a multidisciplinary approach and international cooperation. Here, we summarize 20 presentations given in the symposium ‘Protecting pollinators and our food supply: Understanding and managing threats to pollinator health’ at the 19th Congress of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects in San Diego, 2022. We then synthesize the key findings and discuss future research areas such as better understanding the impact of anthropogenic stressors on wild bees.