Winged allies for your crops: strategies for boosting the presence of pollinators

Pollination is a crucial ecosystem service that supports fruit production and quality, directly impacting its commercial value. Several groups of insect species are involved inpollination, including honeybees, wild bees, beetles, hoverflies and butterflies. Pollinator populations have declined drastically over the past three decades, however, raisingconcerns among farmers and governments. While the causes remain debated, significant threats include pesticides and landscape changes due to intensive agriculture, land management and climate change. One of the key priorities of the revised EU Pollinators Initiative for 2030 [1] is to improve pollinator conservation and tackle the causes of pollinator decline. Conservation strategies to address their decline include habitat restoration and enhancement, reducing pesticide use and reducing the impacts of invasive alien species on wild insect pollinators. Farmers are adjusting their practices to cope with the challenge, but many of these solutions remain confined to specific regions or agricultural sectors. The EU-funded CLIMED-FRUIT project is working to bridge this gap by collecting and sharing innovative, climate-adaptive practices from various European agricultural groups to enhance resilience and promote effective climate change adaptation and mitigation. This article presents a non-exhaustive list of experimental results from experience research carried out across Europe and identified in the framework of the CLIMED-FRUIT project.