Land use effects on pollinator composition in conservation grasslands and adjacent croplands in west central Nebraska

Monday, November 14, 2022

10:54 AM – 11:06 AM PT

Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 116/117

Presenting Author(s)

Araceli Gomez (she/her/hers)

Graduate Student
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Nebraska

Co-Author(s)

Hannah E. Stowe

PhD Student
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Nebraska
KT

Kristen Tam

University of California
San Francisco, California
AS

Autumn Smart

Research Assistant Professor
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Nebraska
Julie Ann Peterson

Associate Professor
University of Nebraska
North Platte, Nebraska

Pollinators play a key role to the health and function of ecosystems by providing pollination services to natural habitats and the agricultural industry. Habitat fragmentation, land conversion, pesticides, and row crop farming are some of the largest drivers of the recent global pollinator population declines. Perennial habitats in agricultural landscapes, such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), are therefore crucial to the conservation of pollinators and the connectivity of habitat in intensively farmed land. This study aims to understand the effects of land use on pollinator community composition and the services they provide to perennial grasslands and crop fields in West Central Nebraska. We collected active insect flower visitors using targeted capture to determine diversity and abundance of both pollinators and their corresponding floral resources in grasslands and their adjacent crop fields.