In the 2012 President's Budget Request, the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) is terminated. As a result, all resources, databases, tools, and applications within this web site will be removed on January 15, 2012. For more information, please refer to the NBII Program Termination page.
Provisioning services are products obtained from ecosystems that benefit people such as food, fresh water, fiber, and fuelwood.
Regulating services benefit people through the regulation of ecosystem processes. These services include climate regulation, disease regulation, water regulation (including natural flood control), water purification and natural waste treatment, erosion control, and pollination.
Cultural services include the nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems and include spiritual enrichment, recreation and ecotourism, aesthetic experience, and cognitive development.
Supporting services include those ecosystem processes that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services and that have indirect or very long-term impacts on people. These services include soil formation and retention, nutrient cycling, water cycling, primary production, production of atmospheric oxygen, and provisioning of habitat.
At Your Service
The processes of ecosystems and their interacting biotic and abiotic components that help to sustain life and enrich the planet's biological diversity are often referred to as "ecosystem services." These services, such as water purification and air cleansing, are essential to human well-being and sustainability.
The ecosystem services provided by pollinators include the pollination of agricultural crops and wild plants, which impacts the maintenance of biological diversity and of functioning ecosystems. These services are often taken for granted, but a decline in pollination can have negative economic and ecological consequences, including reduced agricultural yields, deformed fruit, local extinction of a plant species, and declines in seed- and fruit-eating organisms.
New Tool for Assessing the Value of Pollination Services and National Vulnerabilities to Pollinator Declines (January, 2010)
The FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division, in collaboration with INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, a national government agency) has developed a tool for assessing the value of pollination services and national vulnerabilities to pollinator declines. Guidelines explaining the use of the tool, and a downloadable spreadsheet for applying the assessment, are available on the "Documents" page of AGP's Global Action on Pollination Services for Sustainable Agriculture website. The spreadsheet also presents as examples the analysis of the vulnerability of the national economies of Ghana and Nepal, using 2005 FAOSTAT data. The economic value of pollinators in Ghana - with a high dependence of its economy on cocoa production which in turn is 90% dependent on insect pollinators for yields - was estimated at $788 million dollars; the economic value of pollinators to the Nepal economy in 2005 was $81 million. (January, 2010)
It is difficult to estimate the value of pollination to agricultural production and natural communities. It is also difficult to measure the effects on pollination services of increases or decreases in local pollinator populations or changes in pollinator community composition.
Pollination involves complex biological processes and ecological associations that remain poorly understood in most cases, even for agricultural plants. Further, in terms of economic value, it is inherently difficult to assign a monetary value to a service that is crucial for the maintenance of functioning ecosystems and of life itself. The few attempts to estimate the economic value of pollination services have therefore focused primarily on the value of pollinators to agricultural production.
Haagen-Dazs(R)' new HelpTheHoneyBees web site provides a fun, colorful and informative explanation and exploration of the importance of honey bees as pollinators and the importance of their pollination services to the Haagen-Dazs(R) product range.
"Bee pollination is essential for ingredients in nearly 40 percent"of Haagen-Dazs(R) super-premium ice cream flavors. The web site also includes a "bee store" with bee-friendly merchandise. Profits from the"bee store" go towards funding honey bee research. Bravo Haagen-Dazs(R)!
"The work of pollinators ensures full harvests and seed production from many agricultural crops and provides for healthy plants grown in backyards, community gardens, and other urban areas.
Worldwide, of the estimated 1,330 crop plants grown for food, beverages, fibers, condiments, spices, and medicines, approximately 1,000 (75 percent) are pollinated by animals. It has been calculated that one out of every three mouthfuls of food we eat, and beverages we drink, is delivered to us by pollinators.
More than half the world's diet of fats and oils comes from oilseed crops. Many of these, including cotton, oil palm, canola, and sunflowers, are pollinated by animals.
In the U.S., pollination by insects produces $40 billion worth of products annually.
Pollinators are essential components of the habitats and ecosystems that many wild animals rely on for food and shelter.
Approximately 25 percent of birds include fruit or seeds as a major part of their diet.
Plants provide egg laying and nesting sites for many insects, such as butterflies.
Berries and other fruit form a significant part of the late-summer diet of animals, such as grizzly bears, which fatten themselves in preparation for winter hibernation."
The NBII Program is administered by the Biological Informatics Program of the U.S. Geological Survey
