An Assessment of the Pollination Service Value Provided by Insects for Chestnut Based on TESSA Toolkit

Chestnut is an important economic plant for ecology and farmers in mountainous areas in China. We conducted surveys and experiments to assess the economic value of the pollination service provided by insect pollinators for chestnuts via the Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-based Assessment (TESSA) in Bapeng Village, Wangmo County, Guizhou Province of China. We applied three methods presented by TESSA, the desk-based method, the field survey method, and the exclusion experiment, for the assessment. The resulting pollination values for the three methods are (1) CNY 3712.5∙ha−1∙yr−1 in the assessment site and an average of CNY 1386∙ha−1∙yr−1 with buffer zones included for the desk-based method; (2) CNY 3712.5∙ha−1∙yr−1 in the assessment site and an average of CNY 1124∙ha−1∙yr−1 with buffer zones included for the field survey method; and (3) CNY 4158∙ha−1∙yr−1 in the assessment site and an average of CNY 1485∙ha−1∙yr−1 with buffer zones included for the exclusion experiment method. The total value of chestnut pollination of the Bapeng Village ranges from CNY 311,943 yr−1 to CNY 404,663 yr−1. The chestnut pollination of the village is substantially insufficient. This could be the result of the decrease in diversity and uneven distribution of insect pollinators which, per se, are caused by the lack of larval hosts for those pollinators.