Buzz from rain forest good for coffee farms

KU researcher's discovery could save vital habitat

Those coffee beans you’re grinding might be better tasting and more bountiful thanks to rain-forest bees. And that discovery by a Kansas University researcher could give Central American farmers a powerful incentive to stop destroying the bees’ habitat.

Charles Michener, a retired Kansas University biology professor, and three colleagues have published research showing coffee plants growing near rain forests produce 20 percent more beans than those in areas away from forests.

That finding, Michener said, may convince Costa Rican farmers to stop chopping down forests to benefit the coffee plantations that already exist. Saving rain forest can put money in the farmers’ pockets, Michener said.

“It’s very advantageous for them to keep the forest,” the biologist said. “I think it’s new having this (information) quantified and relating it to actual potential income.”

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved Michener and scientists from the World Wildlife Fund and Stanford University.

The group focused on Finca Santa Fe, a large coffee farm in the Valle General of Costa Rica that has several rain forests bordering it.

Michener said scientists knew bees could pollinate coffee trees, but it was unknown whether the pollination affected production and, if so, by how much.

The researchers studied crop production as it related to proximity to the rain forests, which are a natural bee habitat. They found coffee trees that grew in areas heavily pollinated by bees had yields 20 percent higher than in areas farther from the bees. They also discovered the trees visited by bees were 27 percent less likely to produce small, misshapen beans, which produce inferior coffee.

“Policies that allow landowners to capture the value of pollination and other services could provide powerful incentives for forest conservation in some of the most biodiverse and threatened regions on Earth,” the researchers wrote.

Charles Michener, a retired Kansas University biology professor, displays bees found in the rain forest. He joined in research showing that coffee plants growing near rain forests are better producers, because of the bees' pollinating efforts.

Michener’s role in the project was to analyze bees collected by on-site scientists. He compared the bees to the nearly 1 million bee specimens in KU’s collection to identify correct species and gather population estimates.

Michener said many farmers in Costa Rica clear-cut forest land to make way for additional coffee plantations. He said he hoped the new research, when disseminated by the Costa Rican government, would show those farmers it would make more sense financially to keep the forests intact.

“We were interested in the relation of this (pollination) to the crop — how much larger is the crop going to be and how much more is the farmer going to make,” he said. “If you’re a farmer and you can get 20 percent more crop, you should do it. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.”