COS 129-1 - Evaluating the potential impact of USDA-funded pollinator habitat enhancements

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

8:00 AM – 8:15 AM EDT

Location: 514B

Presenting Author(s)

EO

Elissa M. Olimpi

Research Scientist
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia, United States

Slides (PDF) Slides + Audio

Coauthor(s)

HG

Heather Grab

Cornell University, United States
RI

Richard Iovanna

U.S. Department of Agriculture, United States
MO

Megan O'Rourke

U.S. Department of Agriculture, United States
SK

Sarah Karpanty

Virginia Tech, United States

Background/Question/Methods

Agriculture has become increasingly pollinator-dependent. Yet declines in wild pollinators, in part due to cropland expansion, could result in the loss of pollination services and threaten crop production and food security. Habitat conservation and wildflower plantings can help to supplement pollinator resources and safeguard pollination services. Both strategies are incentivized by voluntary agricultural conservation programs for private lands, including the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the largest such program in the U.S. To protect pollination services, pollinator habitat enhancements should be prioritized in areas most vulnerable to the loss of pollination services; that is, regions with little remaining forage and nesting habitat, large areas of pollinator-dependent crops, and recent cropland expansion. We developed a spatially explicit model to identify areas where pollinator habitats are most urgently needed and assessed the distribution of CRP enrollments with respect to vulnerability to loss of pollination services. Specifically, we modeled the distribution of >1.4 million CRP enrollments across the coterminous U.S. in response to recent seminatural habitat conversion (2008-2020) and the relative supply and demand of pollination services.

Results/Conclusions

Our preliminary modeling results suggest that the distribution of CRP enrollments aligns with some, but not all, aspects of vulnerability to loss of pollination services. We found that regions that recently experienced more seminatural habitat conversion also had more land enrolled in the CRP (β=0.03, p< 0.001). However, regions that were more likely to experience pollination deficits (when low pollinator abundances correspond to large areas of pollinator-dependent crops) had less land enrolled in the CRP(β=-0.37, p< 0.001). We identified vulnerable regions at greater risk of experiencing pollination deficits that should be targeted for future pollinator habitat enhancements. Our work suggests that new conservation strategies, such as more competitive payments and better targeting , may be required to protect and enhance pollination services in the most vulnerable regions. More broadly, an integrated national approach to prioritizing where pollinator conservation efforts occur could enhance the impact of conservation investments and help to safeguard pollination services before shortages occur.