New Research In
Physical Sciences
Social Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Biological Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
- Agricultural Sciences
- Anthropology
- Applied Biological Sciences
- Biochemistry
- Biophysics and Computational Biology
- Cell Biology
- Developmental Biology
- Ecology
- Environmental Sciences
- Evolution
- Genetics
- Immunology and Inflammation
- Medical Sciences
- Microbiology
- Neuroscience
- Pharmacology
- Physiology
- Plant Biology
- Population Biology
- Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
- Sustainability Science
- Systems Biology
Economic value of tropical forest to coffee production
-
Contributed by Charles D. Michener, July 17, 2004

Abstract
Can economic forces be harnessed for biodiversity conservation? The answer hinges on characterizing the value of nature, a tricky business from biophysical, socioeconomic, and ethical perspectives. Although the societal benefits of native ecosystems are clearly immense, they remain largely unquantified for all but a few services. Here, we estimate the value of tropical forest in supplying pollination services to agriculture. We focus on coffee because it is one of the world's most valuable export commodities and is grown in many of the world's most biodiverse regions. Using pollination experiments along replicated distance gradients, we found that forest-based pollinators increased coffee yields by 20% within ≈1 km of forest. Pollination also improved coffee quality near forest by reducing the frequency of “peaberries” (i.e., small misshapen seeds) by 27%. During 2000–2003, pollination services from two forest fragments (46 and 111 hectares) translated into ≈$60,000 (U.S.) per year for one Costa Rican farm. This value is commensurate with expected revenues from competing land uses and far exceeds current conservation incentive payments. Conservation investments in human-dominated landscapes can therefore yield double benefits: for biodiversity and agriculture.
Footnotes
-
↵ ‡ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: taylor.ricketts{at}wwfus.org.
-
Abbreviations: ha, hectare; fa, fanegas.
- Copyright © 2004, The National Academy of Sciences
Citation Manager Formats
Sign up for Article Alerts
Jump to section
You May Also be Interested in
More Articles of This Classification
Biological Sciences
Related Content
- No related articles found.
Cited by...
- Coupling of pollination services and coffee suitability under climate change
- Resilience offers escape from trapped thinking on poverty alleviation
- Charles Duncan Michener, 1918-2015
- Effects of land use on bird populations and pest control services on coffee farms
- Wild Pollinators Enhance Fruit Set of Crops Regardless of Honey Bee Abundance
- Caffeine in Floral Nectar Enhances a Pollinator's Memory of Reward
- Predictive model for sustaining biodiversity in tropical countryside
- Engaging the public in biodiversity issues
- Global mapping of ecosystem services and conservation priorities
- Accounting for ecosystem services as a way to understand the requirements for sustainable development
- Tradeoffs between income, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning during tropical rainforest conversion and agroforestry intensification
- Wild bees enhance honey bees' pollination of hybrid sunflower