Abstract

Animal-mediated pollination is important for agricultural seed and crop production, and critical to overall ecosystem health. However, the scientific literature focused on the economic valuation of pollination services has thus far neglected the role of pollination services in seed production. The marketed food output of many crops is not dependent on pollination services, but these crops indirectly depend on pollination services with respect to their seed production. This study proposes a partial equilibrium framework for identifying the value of pollination services. Using Germany as a case study, we find the value of pollination services is about 33% higher when seed production is considered. This increased valuation is driven by two effects: higher seed costs due to high dependence on pollination services, and a higher demand for seeds due to the land expansion needed to mitigate a potential pollinator collapse. This study demonstrates that more sophisticated approaches are needed to estimate the economic value of pollination services more accurately.

中文翻译：

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种子生产授粉服务的经济价值：值得关注的盲点

摘要

动物介导的授粉对于农业种子和作物生产非常重要，对整体生态系统健康也至关重要。然而，迄今为止，关注授粉服务经济价值的科学文献却忽视了授粉服务在种子生产中的作用。许多作物的上市粮食产量并不依赖于授粉服务，但这些作物的种子生产间接依赖于授粉服务。本研究提出了一个用于确定授粉服务价值的部分均衡框架。以德国为例，我们发现，考虑到种子生产，授粉服务的价值大约高出 33%。估值增加是由两个因素驱动的：由于对授粉服务的高度依赖而导致种子成本上升，以及由于需要扩大土地来缓解潜在的授粉媒介崩溃而导致对种子的需求增加。这项研究表明，需要更复杂的方法来更准确地估计授粉服务的经济价值。