TITLE:
Twenty-Three Years of Insect Pollinator-Dependent Crop Studies in Agro-Ecological Zones of Cameroon (2011-2020)
AUTHORS:
Népidé Ndobadé Carine, Egono Ndemé Carole Christèle, Daniel Farda, Mazi Sanda
KEYWORDS:
Agro-Ecological Zones, Cameroon, Flowering Insects, Hymenoptera, Pollinators
JOURNAL NAME:
Agricultural Sciences,
Vol.15 No.8,
August
16,
2024
ABSTRACT: Cultivation of pollinator-dependent crops has expanded globally, increasing our reliance on insect pollination. This essential ecosystem service is provided by a wide range of managed and wild pollinators whose abundance and diversity are thought to be in decline, threatening sustainable food production. In Cameroon, several studies on pollinator-dependent crops carried out in different agro-ecological zones (AEZ) have been published in national and international journals, in order to present the importance and impact of flowering insects on fruit and seed yields of plant species. We proposed to produce a review article highlighting the different flowering insects and their importance for different plants according to AEZ, without however focusing on the quality of the journal (predator or non-predator) and how the different insects were identified (scientific names given in the publications). Thus, from 1997 to 2020, we collected 116 published papers from which only 26 were kept for this review. The results show that Hymenoptera, including the Apidae, followed by Megachilidae, are the most excellent pollinators of plant species in Cameroon, and they are present in different agro-ecological zones. The majority of publications focused on bees, particularly the honeybee Apis mellifera.