Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program:
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

We are studying phenological habitat associations of pollinators and effects of land-use and land-cover change from local to landscape scales on pollinator communities, with study sites in ten National Wildlife Refuges, spanning Maine to Virginia. Pollinators are declining globally due to climate change, pesticide use, and habitat loss. Recent and rapid pollinator declines has generated conservation concerns resulting in petitions for listing of several pollinator species under the Endangered Species Act and identification of regional at-risk insect species throughout the United States.

The research objectives are to: (1) determine the distribution, status, life history, and ecology of regional priority at risk pollinators throughout U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Region 5, (2) test effects of habitat availability, land-use and land-cover change, and management actions on regional priority pollinator species and associated species, (3) attain more information on plant-pollinator networks priority pollinator species to guide vegetation restoration, and (4) help inform management for conservation of at-risk, priority pollinator species and pollinators broadly.

The USFWS requested information on priority, at-risk pollinator species to inform effective management. The goal of the project is to better understand the distribution and ecology of and anthropogenic threats to pollinators in the eastern United States to inform pollinator management by the USFWS.