Monitoring plant and arthropod community succession in habitat enhancements for agrivoltaic ecosystems

Over the past decade, solar park land in the USA has nearly doubled each year. These installations remove vegetation, compact soils, and leave areas barren of plant diversity. As this occurs, declines in arthropod pollinator habitats are observed globally. Agrivoltaics, adding diverse-flowering plant species to solar farms for the benefit of agriculture, offer unique opportunities to maximize the efficiency of our current land use. As such, our objective was to evaluate the establishment of seed mixes and assess their attractiveness for arthropod conservation on a solar farm as compared to industry standard in a multiyear succession study. In autumn 2019, low-diversity (LDM) and high-diversity (HDM) seed mixes were sown under panels at a 10A solar park in Georgia, USA. A combination of all seed mix species was spread along the park perimeter and control plots had no seeds sown. Plant species coverage data were recorded monthly from April-October of 2021. Concurrently, arthropod community changes were monitored using sweep nets. Arthropod taxa were summarized into functional groups: pollinators, natural enemies, and herbivores & decomposers. Herbivores & decomposers encompassed over 65% of the total arthropods caught, whereas pollinators was the least numerous group of insects in each treatment. Also, two perennial plant species bloomed in high numbers in LDM and four in HDM. Our maintenance mowing height of 12” most likely hindered bloom production, and hence lowered pollinator counts. This multiyear study will continue in 2022 where the number of blooms is expected to increase as perennials reach their mature size.