Stingless bees are vital pollinators for both wild and crop plants, yet their communities have been affected and altered by anthropogenic land-use change. Additionally, few studies have directly addressed the consequences of land-use change for meliponines, and knowledge on how their communities change across gradients in surrounding landscape cover remains scarce. Here, we examine both how local and landscape-level compositions as well as forest proximity affect both meliponine species richness and abundance together with pollination networks across 30 mixed fruit orchards in Southern Thailand. The results reveal that most landscape-level factors significantly influenced both stingless bee richness and abundance. Surrounding forest cover has a strong positive direct effect on both factors, while agricultural and urbanized cover generally reduced both bee abundance and diversity. In the local habitat, there is a significant interaction between orchard size and floral richness with stingless bee richness. We also found that pollinator specialization in pollination networks decreased when the distance to the forest patch increased. Both local and landscape factors thus influenced meliponine assemblages, particularly the forest patches surrounding an orchard, which potentially act as a key reservoir for stingless bees and other pollinator taxa. Preservation of forest patches can protect the permanent nesting and foraging habitat of various pollinator taxa, resulting in high visitation for crop and wild plants.

The local implementation of Thailand’s public good agricultural practices (GAP) certification standard was investigated by examining its effectiveness in raising farmers’ awareness, lowering pesticide use, and thus improving food safety and quality assurance. A total of 98 certified and 100 uncertified farms were surveyed in two Thai provinces, Chanthaburi and Nakhon Si Thammarat, respectively. Considering durian (Durio zibethinus Murr.) cultivation, the economic size of farming in the former region is relatively larger and production more market-oriented, while in the latter region, the farming scale is smaller. It was observed that knowledge and understanding of GAP is much higher among the certified as compared to the uncertified farmers, although the effectiveness of GAP in lowering pesticide use remains unconfirmed. The comparison between the two regions also suggests that farmers’ pesticide use could be affected by other contextual factors to a greater extent than the GAP. Results from a multivariate linear regression analysis highlighted the critical importance of training on Q-GAP and pesticide use in reducing pesticide use among certified farmers. This suggests that GAP applicant farmers should be encouraged to participate in training on those subjects as an integral part of their Q-GAP application or renewal procedure.

Proximity to natural habitat is known to enhance pollination services in large‐scale agriculture, but it remains unclear whether this holds in tropical smallholder farms. These systems are embedded in ecologically complex landscapes, central to global food security, and depend heavily on biodiversity‐derived ecosystem services. We conducted a systematic review and meta‐analysis of 35 studies assessing the relationship between distance to natural habitat and pollinator abundance, species richness, and crop fruit set in tropical smallholder farms. We found no consistent patterns in pollinator abundance and crop fruit set with increasing distance, with relationships highly variable across studies. Similarly variable, yet slightly negative, was the relationship between distance and pollinator species richness. Our findings suggest limited support for the ‘proximity to natural habitat’ hypothesis in tropical smallholder farms, indicating that the inherent complexity of these landscapes may buffer negative effects of distance on pollination. This underscores the importance of maintaining and restoring landscape complexity to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem services such as crop pollination. We also highlight the need for greater methodological consistency and publicly available raw data in future studies to strengthen the evidence base and support management strategies for safeguarding pollination services in tropical smallholder farms.