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

Maine Project

Pollination Security for Fruit and Vegetable Crops in the Northeast (collaborative project with Frank Drummond, Aaron Hoshide, Sam Hanes, Alison Dibble at UMaine)

January 2012 - May 2019

Personnel

Participating Agencies

  • USDA Standard Research and Extension Project

Pollinator-dependent crops require a readily available source of pollinators. Although honey bees provide this service for a variety of crops, a diverse pollinator community is needed to ensure sustainability in this service. Native bee pollinators potentially contribute to this sustainability, however, knowledge about factors that affect their abundance and distributions is lacking. We are collaborating with a larger team of scientists to examine a variety of factors that potentially affect native pollinators of blueberries. Our focus is to understand relationships between native pollinators of wild blueberries and the landscape composition and arrangement around wild blueberry fields.

Research Publications Publication Date
Groff, S.C., C.S. Loftin, F.A. Drummond, S. Bushmann, and B.McGill. 2016. Parameterization of the InVEST Crop Pollination Model to spatially predict abundance of wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Aiton) native bee pollinators in Maine, USA. Environmental Modeling and Software 79:1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.01.003 | Download January 2016
Presentations Presentation Date
Chapin, S. C. Loftin, F. Drummond. 2012. GIS and Blueberry Pollination. Presentation at the University of Maine’s Cooperative Extension - Wild Blueberry Field Day. Jonesboro, Maine. July 18. July 2012
Chapin, S. C.Loftin, F. Drummond. 2012. Landscape Ecology of Native Bees of the Northeast. Poster presented at the Annual Coordinating Committee Meeting of the U.S. Geological Survey, Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. Orono, Maine. March 20. March 2012
Chapin, S., C.S. Loftin, and F. Drummond. 2013. Assessing the Effect of Landscape Pattern and Arrangement on Native Bee Abundance in Maine’s Blueberry Fields, Poster Presentation at the Northeast Natural History Conference, April 13-15, Springfield, MA. April 2013
Chapin, S., C. Loftin, and F. Drummond. The application of spatial modeling tools to assess the effect of landscape pattern and arrangement on native bee abundance in Maine's wild blueberries. Poster presentation at the 2013 International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health, and Policy, August 14-17, Penn State University, University Park, PA. August 2013
Chapin, S.J., C.S. Loftin, and F.Drummond. 2014. Effects of landsacpe pattern and arrangement on native bee abundance in Maine's wild blueberries. Presentation at the 70th Annual Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, April 13-15, Portland, ME. April 2014
Du Clos, B.E., C.S. Loftin, and F.Drummond. 2014. Native bee communities in electric transmission easements of Washington County, Maine. Poster presentation at the 70th Annual Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, April 13-15, Portland, ME. April 2014
Du Clos, B., Hanes, S.P., Groff, S.C., Loftin, C.S., and F.A. Drummond. 2015. A tool for grower assessment of wild bee abundance in the Maine wild blueberry landscape. Student Conference on Conservation Science. New York, NY. 7-9 October. Poster. October 2015
Du Clos, B., Hanes, S.P., Groff, S.C., Loftin, C.S., and F.A. Drummond. 2015. BeeMapper: a tool for grower assessment of wild bee abundance. Wild Blueberry Research and Extension Workers 2015 Annual Conference. Bar Harbor, ME, 13 October. October 2015
Du Clos, B., Hanes, S.P., Groff, S.C., Loftin, C.S., and F.A. Drummond. 2016. A tool for grower assessment of wild bee abundance in the Maine wild blueberry landscape. Colby Conference on Community, Culture, and Conservation. Waterville, ME. 7-9 April. Poster. April 2016
Theses and Dissertations Publication Date
Chapin, Shannon J. 2014. the application of spatial modeling tools to predict native bee abundance in Maine's lowbush blueberries. M.S. thesis, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, 55pp. May 2014