If you build it they will come: Interim result of monitoring insect diversity and abundance at solar facilities planted with pollinator-supportive habitat

The expansion of utility-scale solar development across the U.S. has increased the pressure on land resources for energy generation and other land uses (e.g., agriculture). To address this growing issue, greater emphasis has been placed on development strategies that maximize the benefits of energy generation and multiple ecosystem services, such as combining solar energy development with biodiversity conservation. Compared to other types of site management, the restoration of native grassland habitat at solar energy facilities (“solar-pollinator habitat”) has the potential to improve habitat quality for pollinating insects and other native wildlife, while also providing other ecosystem service benefits. As more solar developments are being managed for solar-pollinator habitat, there is a need for monitoring projects to inform questions around ecological performance, scalability, and management considerations. In this presentation, we share our collaborative broad-scale ecological monitoring strategy for solar energy sites in the Midwest that have been planted with pollinator-friendly native vegetation. Several of these solar facilities have been systematically monitored over the past 5 years to measure habitat and insect pollinator responses over time, while research is just beginning at the other sites. We present preliminary results on some of the primary ecological performance measures: (1) vegetation establishment and habitat composition; (2) on-site insect pollinator abundance and diversity; and (3) off-site pollinator visitation to nearby agricultural areas. In addition to these findings, we will also discuss designs for research at new large-scale facilities (>10 MW) to monitor vegetation establishment and pollinator effects considering the scale and configuration of the plantings.