12/11/2020 2 Comments FIRST ENTRYHello, and thank you for taking an interest in our project! This entry will serve as a brief overview of myself and the project. But not to worry! There will be many more entries that will break the project down into more detail. To start... WHO ARE WE?Left to right: Dr. Maggie Couvillon, Frank Müller, Micki Palmersheim I am a graduate student working towards a master’s degree in Entomology at Virginia Tech, under the advisement of Dr. Maggie Couvillon. We began working on this project in the fall of 2019, and after many months of planning, preparing, and planting flowers, we began collecting data in the summer of 2020. Our project is fully funded by Kaeser Compressors, Inc., an air compressor company with headquarters in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Their generous contributions provide the financial support that is being used to purchase all materials, travel allocation, and 2 years of a student stipend for myself and undergraduate assistants. WHAT ARE WE DOING?Our project is focusing on creating an ideal pollinator garden for the southwestern Appalachian region. We are watching native and wild bees forage in a garden, where we planted 25 popular landscape perennials and annuals. We are collecting data while we watch bees forage to determine which flowers are preferred by pollinators, such as honey bees, bumble bees, native bees, flies, butterflies, and other insects. We can further analyze our results to determine which flowers attract the most abundance of bees, and the most diversity. Why a pollinator garden?There is currently a devastating loss in insect populations around the world. Pollinators are some of the most affected by insect decline, yet are responsible for food security for humans. Nearly 90% of the leading 107 global crops rely on insect pollination. Decline in insect populations will predictably result in lost crop yield and ecological consequences, such as declining insectivorous bird and mammal populations. The reasons behind pollinator declines are complex and multifaceted. However, of these contributions, human interaction has played a huge role through habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, and agricultural intensification. Pollinator gardens are an exceptional and easy way to provide habitat and resources for pollinators in urban landscapes where resources are scarce and difficult to come by. Studies have shown that pollinator gardens can increase abundance and diversity to pollinator populations in urban areas. Pollinator gardens can come in all shapes and sizes, and can be altered to fit any gardeners capabilities. Even if a gardener only has a balcony available, container gardens can make a beautiful addition that is also useful to pollinators. Our goal is to provide recommendations for plantings to include in pollinator gardens that will be most effective in attracting and benefitting many kinds of pollinators. When are results expected?Photo of field site located at the Turfgrass Research Center. Photo by: Micki Palmersheim Our project is spanning the course of just over 2 years. During the summer of 2020, we collected our first season of data, and summer of 2021 we will have completed our data collection. During the fall of 2021, we will analyze our data and results can be expected in December of 2021. Where can i find more informationFor updates, consider following our blog! Below is an option to get an email notification each time there is a new blog posted.
We also post on our Instagram account during the summer weeks @plantings4pollinators. For more information about the Couvillon lab, please visit freeflyingbees.com
2 Comments
Dee Treschuk
2/3/2021 11:43:37 am
Can't wait to hear more
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Marcus Nilsson
2/28/2021 10:31:49 am
Very interesting. Please keep me posted on this project! I am actually designing a pollinator garden for both wild bees and honeybees (and other insect life) in southern Sweden. We make use of permaculture and try to work with as much native plants as possible to enrich insect and wildlife in our project. So, keep up the good work!
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