Coffee farmers in the Peruvian Amazon are losing the wild insects that pollinate their crops, and no one knows exactly which species matter most or how to keep them on the land. This project addresses a blind spot in conservation science. Peru’s economy depends on agriculture, including coffee—a crop highly vulnerable to climate change and reliant on animal pollination. Yet researchers lack basic data on which insects visit coffee flowers, what alternative food sources those insects use across the landscape, and how farming practices affect them. The project will combine ecological fieldwork—collecting flower-visitor data and analysing pollen from stingless bee honey—with community workshops that capture local and gendered knowledge about pollinator management. If successful, the research could give smallholder farmers a practical toolkit for managing their land to support both pollinators and coffee yields. The co-created framework is designed to be adaptable to other crops and regions across the Peruvian Amazon. Beyond immediate agricultural advice, the project will also reveal how women’s roles in stingless beekeeping contribute to local economies—knowledge that could shape more inclusive rural development policies.
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Animal pollination is crucial for ecosystem stability and global food security, however declines in many pollinator species have been recorded worldwide. Peru is a global biodiversity hotspot where deforestation and climate change are key threats for many species, including pollinators. With Peru's economy reliant on agriculture, including crops that depend on animal pollination, there exists a juxtaposition between a desire for nature conservation and increased agricultural production. Managing landscapes to benefit pollinator biodiversity is expected to benefit crop yields, however challenges exist in developing sustainable approaches to agricultural land management. In other biodiverse tropical regions, stingless beekeeping (meliponiculture) benefits biodiversity and also crop production through enhanced pollination services. However, there is limited knowledge of the role of stingless bees and other insects for pollination of many crops in Peru, or how agricultural landscapes can be managed to support diverse pollinator communities. Our project will take an interdisciplinary approach to assessing the role of pollinators for coffee production in the Peruvian Amazon, a crop of significant economic value in Peru which is highly vulnerable to climate change. We will: 1) Collect flower-visitor interaction data to identify pollinators important for coffee production on smallholder farms and identify which floral resources across the landscape are utilised by pollinators through plant-pollinator network analyses. 2) Analyse pollen from stingless bee honey to identify floral sources. 3) Undertake participatory community workshops, emphasising gendered and intergenerational knowledges, to gather qualitative data around current practices and knowledge in relation to pollinating insects and stingless bee management in coffee production, including local knowledge of flower-insect interactions. 4) Integrate data across the project components using a network approach to examine how local knowledge maps to the ecological data on pollinating insects. The partnership will integrate expertise across disciplines and share knowledge among partners through workshops and capacity building activities. The project will build links with local communities, critical for the development of future research activities. Project results will be shared with stakeholders, including local communities, via dissemination workshops. Workshop feedback will guide development of research outputs to maximise their impact with smallholder farmers and governmental departments. A toolkit for dissemination with smallholder farmers will synthesise our results and integrate findings with existing knowledge to advise on best practices for sustainable management of agricultural landscapes that benefit pollinators and crop production. The project will develop our understanding of which pollinators are important for a high value crop, which floral resources those pollinators use, and how coffee farms can be better managed to support pollinators in Peru. The co-created methodological framework for this proof-of-concept study of smallholder coffee farms will be adaptable to other regions across the Peruvian Amazon and other crops. We will also expand knowledge of the gender dynamics around stingless beekeeping and the roles of women in sustaining and enhancing economies based around the synergies between coffee production and stingless beekeeping. This new partnership will provide an important foundation for further collaborative studies across the Peruvian Amazon. We intend for these to inform sustainable agricultural practices, bolster conservation efforts, empower local communities, and shape effective strategies and policy making. These actions will protect pollinators and pollination services for crops, supporting the agricultural viability and biodiversity of the region.
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