Abstract Bees and some wasp species of the superfamily Apoidea pollinate most of the crops used for food and feed, producing different impacts on agricultural production. Despite the considerable importance of Apoidea, the relevance of this group's impact on global crop production and human diets is controversial.To measure the pollination effect of these insects on crop production, factors such as the myriad of agricultural practices, different crop varieties, fluctuating pollinators' densities, constantly changing environmental conditions, and demands for food items in a diverse diets must be considered. An ‘Apoidea impact factor' (AIF), a value calculated taking into consideration the effect of this superfamily on enhancing crop production through pollination, the diversity of crops in a given area, the area planted by specific crops, and agricultural output, was calculated for 176 agricultural crops. Consistently with previous estimations, our results show that Apoidea have a direct impact on 66% of the 128 most important agricultural crops consumed in the world. However, the analysis of the impact of Apoidea on global production and human consumption revealed a different perspective: Apoidea pollination affects only 16% of the total tonnage output, 14% of the cultivated area, and 9% of the kilocalories consumed. Because 25 of the most cultivated crops in the world do not require, or are slightly affected by Apoidea pollination, and these plants grow in 84% of the world's cropland, constituting 50% of the world's diet, and 89% of the kilocalories consumed by peoples around of the world, the AIF at the world level is reduced to 11% of food consumed, and 6% of the kilocalories. The AIF, when applied to a small geographical scale, for example, the municipality or county level rather than country or state level, becomes more useful identifying areas where bees and wasps have greater impact in agriculture. In this report, we update the widely popular quote ‘One out of every three bites of food we eat is a result of pollinators like honey bees’ to a more accurate one: ‘nearly 5% of the food we eat, and about 10% of the calories we burn have a direct relationship with Apoidea pollination'. This new estimate does not diminish the need for pollinators for many of the world's most nutritious foods, but merely suggests that these foods do not provide an extensive part of the human diet. The AIF can be used to identify specific areas where these pollinators have greater impact and direct conservation efforts directly into them. This approach can serve as a better estimate of the role of these pollinators in our food, using data-driven arguments.

中文翻译：

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Apoidea（膜翅目）对世界粮食生产和饮食的影响

摘要 蜜蜂和蜂总科的一些黄蜂为大部分粮食和饲料作物授粉，对农业生产产生不同的影响。尽管 Apoidea 相当重要，但该群体对全球作物生产和人类饮食的影响的相关性是有争议的。为了衡量这些昆虫对作物生产的授粉效果，包括无数的农业实践、不同的作物品种、波动的授粉媒介等因素必须考虑密度、不断变化的环境条件以及对多样化饮食中食品的需求。“Apoidea 影响因子”（AIF），计算的值考虑了该超科对通过授粉提高作物产量的影响，给定区域的作物多样性，特定作物的种植面积和农业产量按 176 种农作物计算。与之前的估计一致，我们的结果表明，Apoidea 对世界上消费的 128 种最重要的农作物中的 66% 有直接影响。然而，对Apoidea对全球生产和人类消费影响的分析揭示了一个不同的视角：Apoidea授粉仅影响总吨位产量的16%、耕地面积的14%和消耗的大卡的9%。因为世界上种植最多的作物中有 25 种不需要或受Apoidea 授粉影响很小，而这些植物生长在世界 84% 的耕地中，占世界饮食的 50%，占世界消耗热量的 89%。世界各地的人们，世界水平的 AIF 减少到消耗的食物的 11% 和卡路里的 6%。当 AIF 应用于较小的地理范围时，例如，市或县级而不是国家或州级，在识别蜜蜂和黄蜂对农业影响更大的区域时变得更有用。在这份报告中，我们将广受欢迎的名言“我们吃的每三口食物中就有一口是蜜蜂等传粉媒介的结果”更新为更准确的说法：“我们吃的食物的近 5%，大约 10%我们燃烧的卡路里中的大部分与 Apoidea 授粉有直接关系”。这一新的估计并没有减少世界上许多最有营养的食物对传粉媒介的需求，而只是表明这些食物并没有提供人类饮食的广泛组成部分。AIF 可用于确定这些传粉媒介具有更大影响的特定区域，并将保护工作直接用于这些区域。这种方法可以使用数据驱动的论据更好地估计这些传粉媒介在我们食物中的作用。