Frequent access to ecosystem services leads to increased understanding of pollination O acesso frequente aos serviços ecossistêmicos leva a um maior entendimento da polinização

The perception of people on conservation actions affect the efficiency of environmental policies, since it impacts the success of its implementation. We tested whether the perception of people on pollination change among productive and consumption sectors, and if it is influenced by the degree of schooling, using the production-chain of the passion fruit as study model, which demands crossed-pollination provided by large-sized bees. The perception of people along five sectors was evaluated from production to consumption, interviewing 162 people with a questionnaire on passion-fruit pollination. With a correspondence analysis, we correlated each production and consumption sector to the knowledge about pollination presented by them. The understands of each sector was related to the type of education that they received previously (formal/scholar vs. non-scholar, including non-formal education and courses) through a Kruskal-Wallis test. Sellers of inputs and farmers were correlated to perceive bees in a positive way, know more correct concepts about pollination and bee species, and praised large-bees in agriculture, compared to other sectors. Consumers perceived bees in a negative way, know fewer correct concepts on pollination, and associated them with food and not with ecosystem services. However, consumption sectors acknowledged bees as valuable and supported initiatives for pollinator-friendly agriculture. The higher degree of schooling lead to more knowledge on pollination among the sellers, but not in other sectors. In general, familiarity to the subject provided by experience and by non-scholar education increased the understanding about pollination. The insertion of ecosystem services in the daily life of people shall contribute to fixate knowledge and change the negative perceptions about ecosystem services and promote conservation policies.


INTRODUCTION
Pollination has a central role in the food production, directly affecting fruit and seed qualities and representing a fundamental ecosystem service to natural and agricultural crops (Klein et al., 2007). Among pollination agents, bees are the most important group, being responsible for 73% of the pollination of agricultural crops in the world (FAO, 2004). Despite their great importance, bees are threatened by land-use change and deforestation (Ramírez et al., 2013), and consequently, a decrease in pollination has been documented since the 1990s (Potts et al., 2010;Goulson et al., 2015).
The decrease in bee-colonies and, therefore, in pollination, has an economic impact and represents a financial turnover of 153 billion euros each year (Gallai et al., 2009). In Brazil, more than 60% of the agricultural crops rely on biotic pollinators, which has a contribution to food production above 10 billion euro (Giannini et al., 2015). There are some human-driven factors decreasing the delivery of the ecosystem service of pollination, such as deforestation, habitat fragmentation, excessive use of pesticides, presence of invasive species, pathogens, and climate change (Le Conte and Navajas, 2008;Neumann and Carreck, 2010;Potts et al., 2010;Goulson et al., 2015;Paudel et al., 2015). Consequently, one promising way to mitigate the causes of the decrease in pollination is to inform people through environmental education, so they promote the conservation policies (Ramadoss and Poyya Moli, 2011;Frantz and Mayer, 2013).
The relationship between humans and nature originates from the how we know, think, perceive, and interact to the environment (Russell et al., 2013). Thus, to mitigate the anthropogenic impacts on pollinators, we need to understand how people perceive their environment and the ecosystem service of pollination. Based on the perceptions of people, we can recommend strategies to increase the awareness of the importance of sustainable actions and biological conservation (De Oliveira and Berkes, 2014). It is also possible to use these perceptions to create educational materials, pollinator-friendly management methods and to suggest research topics on the preservation species.
We analysed the production-chain of the passion fruit (Passiflora spp.), a species dependent on biotic pollination. Most fruits produced by this species (~ 95%) are pollinated by a biotic agent (Giannini et al., 2015).
Cross-pollination is needed to produce the fruits, and due to the flower morphology, the most important pollinators of this culture are large-sized bees belonging to the genus Xylocopa (Corbet and Willmer, 1980). We assumed that each sector related to production and consumption of the passion fruit would have a different perception about large-size bees and their role in pollination. These perceptions could be affected by scholar/formal and/or non-scholar education (Kollmunss and Agyeman, 2002).
Non-scholar education would embrace non-formal education and also courses and talks taken spontaneously by the participant. We expected that people closely related to nature should be more interested and therefore know more accurate concepts on ecosystem services (Kasina et al., 2009). Similarly, scholar/formal education might affect the understanding of people, since high degrees of schooling are related to more theoretical knowledge on Por meio de testes de Kruskal-Wallis, verificamos se o conhecimento de cada setor estava relacionado com à educação escolar e/ou não escolar. Os vendedores de insumo e produtores estão correlacionados com maior conhecimento sobre polinização e espécies de abelhas, enaltecem a existência de abelhas de grande porte nas culturas e percebem abelhas de forma positiva, comparados aos setores de consumo. Os setores de consumo sabem menos sobre polinização, perceberam abelhas de forma negativa e associam abelhas à alimentação, não a serviços ecossistêmicos. No entanto, estes setores consideram as abelhas valiosas ao ambiente e apoiam inciativas sustentáveis de produção agrícola. Palavras-chave: abelha, educação, escolar, inseto, serviços ecossistêmicos.
Our objective with this study was to describe the perception of five sectors related to production and/or consumption of the passion fruit: sellers of agricultural inputs, passion-fruit farmers, and primary, secondary and final consumers. We used an ordination analysis to show whether the knowledge (i.e. the pollination concept, bee species, which pollinator acts in the passion fruit pollination) was related to scholar and non-scholar education. All analyses were performed in R (R Core Team, 2017).

RESULTS
We interviewed 162 people, 102 males (63%) and 60 females (37%, Table 1    even though there were differences between these two sectors (all p < 0.001). Consumers did not differ in their knowledge between themselves (all p > 0.05), but differed when compared to sellers and farmers ( Table 2).

DISCUSSION
Non-scholar education affected the understanding of the ecosystem service of pollination. Sellers of agricultural inputs, who deal commercially with crop pests control, know that bees are insects, for example. However, they do not discriminate which insects provide environmental services, such as pollination or biological control, and which are considered pests in the crops. Therefore, sellers have some proximity to the production of the passion fruit, and therefore, some understanding on pollination, but not as deep as the farmers. The farmers of the passion fruit know the importance of bees as agents of pollination and recognize their positive role, which was also found in other studies (Gurung, 2003;Kasina et al., 2009) not found in other sectors related to production and consumption of the passion fruit, despite their degree of schooling. Therefore, non-scholar education seems to be the most important factor causing knowledge and positive perception on pollination.
The sectors close to the passion fruit production, i.e.
the sellers and the farmers, are related to understanding the pollination concept and consider pollinators essential to the production and quality of the fruit. These sectors also know many bee species and understand that largesized bees are essential for the passion fruit culture, as it was found also for bees in general (Gurung, 2003;Santos and Costa-Neto, 2012). Other studies also found that farmers and producers know the concept of pollination and the importance of bees as pollinators (Munyuli, 2011;Kasina et al., 2009;López-Del-Toro et al., 2009).
In general, these sectors received training on pollination through their social associations or institutes, together with individual experience, which should explain their greater knowledge on the subject (Hanes et al., 2013;López-Del-Toro et al., 2009). Most farmers know the concept of pollination and the importance of bees as pollinators (Munyuli, 2011;Kasina et al., 2009;López-Del-Toro et al., 2009). Thus, training courses or even the follow-up of extension courses may consistently increase the understanding on pollination.
Consumers, who do not deal with the production in their daily lives, know less the concepts analysed and the importance of bees for pollination. Primary consumers associate bees with nature, quote popular names and characteristics of bees; secondary consumers associate bees to negative characteristics, such as stinging, allergy, pain and fear; final consumers associate bees with food, mostly honey (Ulysséa et al., 2010). The association of bees to negative characteristics seems to be common in similar studies, focused in consumers (Modro et al., 2009;Ulysséa et al., 2010). Formal/scholar education within these sectors did not influence the perception on environmental services, contrary to what was found in other studies (e.g. Muhamad et al., 2014). In order to formal/scholar education to be effective, it must be structured with an environmental approach.
In our case, the sectors of sales and consumption of the passion fruit are distant from the areas of production: they live in urban environments. They might not have frequent contact with field production, and the infrequent daily experience with aspects involving pollination and pollinators may affect our results. Consumers, who are in usually in urbanized environments, might have a less effective relationship with pollinators, and therefore, these beings might be less remembered. For these sectors, environmental education might be a component to help to raise awareness and promote ecologically sustainable attitudes (Frantz and Mayer, 2013). Non-scholar education, Although consumers know less about pollination and pollinators than farmers, they exhibited pro-environmental attitude, being related to the answers "destruction of green areas, use of pesticides, diseases and global warming affect bees" and "consider important to create a seal to ensure that passion fruit production protects bees and pollinators". They acknowledged bees as valuable and they support initiatives for pollinator-friendly agriculture.
Therefore, we show that there is a dichotomy: while consumers have a pro-environmental attitude and believe it is important to protect the bees, they do not know the concepts related to pollinations and do not see bees positively.
Environmental education is a tool that can increase the perception of the importance of pollinators in society (Sodhi et al., 2010). It is important to promote public policies that allow for the creation of green urban areas, which would not only directly favour the survival of pollinator species, but also increase the contact of people 7/9 to the ecosystem services provided by pollinator species (Sodhi et al., 2010;Ramadoss and Poyya Moli, 2011).
In addition to improving the quality of life of the human population, the presence of green areas can promote contact with living beings to improve the understanding and perceptions of these services (Sodhi et al., 2010;Ramadoss and Poyya Moli, 2011).

CONCLUSIONS
We found different perceptions of the importance of bees along the different sectors related to production and consumption of the passion-fruit mainly due to non-scholar education and, in some cases, due to the degree of scholar education. Farmers and sellers of inputs know more correct concepts about pollination, probably related to their more frequent attendance to training and workshops, besides their daily professional experience.
Sectors related to the passion fruit sales and consumption know less correct concepts about pollination, probably because they live in urbanized sites with less contact with green areas. In general, familiarity to the subject is determinant on peoples' perceptions on pollination and concepts, however this did not turn them pro-environmental seals and regulation.
For the people to be more supportive of conservation policies, especially the protection of bees, it is necessary to invest in awareness-raising activities for sectors that are distant from green areas and of the production itself.
The insertion ecosystem services in the daily life may lead to more support of conservation actions. At the same time, it would be necessary to provide options and find collaborative measures to properly assess environmental regulations and seals that would reflect widely accepted along the sectors.