1. Habitat for Pollinators: Current Efforts in Conservation and Restoration Logan Rowe, Department of Entomology Michigan State University
Thanks for having me here.
I am a masters student in the department of entomology at MSU
My presentation is titled:

2. Overview Bee diversity
What do we know about how habitats influence pollinators?
Long Leaf Pine Project
On Farm habitat for Pollinators
Plant selection to support pollinators
Questions?
Before we dive in
Bee diversity- in michigan
What does current work show us about how habitats influence pollinators and their communities

3. Bee Diversity Bees represent a large and diverse group of pollinators
371
391
420
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440 PA WI IN NY MI
States
Approximately 20,000 species of bees world wide. About 450 of which can be found in Michigan
One of the most diverse bee communities in the states
If you look with in Michigan there is quite a bit of diversity in pollinator species richness- this could be due more sampling efforts in certain counties- another possibility is that northern regions experience harsher winters, and so fewer bees are able to persist in these conditions
Jason Gibbs (unpublished data)

4. Bee Diversity Social Bees Miner Bees Andrena Mason Bees Osmia
Cellophane Bees Colletes
Mason Bees Osmia
Leafcutter Bees Magachile
Wool Carder Bees Anthidium
Sweat Bees Halicidae
Carpenter Bees Xylocopa
I’ll talk more about bee diversity later in the talk but these are some of our more common bee genera. All of these bees vary in their life historys, so where they live, whether they nest in the ground or in the pithy stems of dead plants, their social structures. Many of you might recognize some of these bees, especially the bumble bees and the honey bees. Both are our only social bees and and managed for some crop production. Although the honey bees receive most attention in terms of management for pollinatino
Long-Horned Bees Melissodes
Social Bees
Honey bees Apis
Bumble bees Bombus

5. Characteristics of bees
Eyes at sides of head
Are hairy (usually)
Long antennae
Rounder bodies
4 wings
Females carry large loads of pollen

6. Pollinator Importance
Bees play a vital role in the stability of both managed and unmanaged ecosystems.
depend almost entirely on accessible plant resources such as pollen and nectar
84% of flowering plant species rely on pollination services provided by insect pollinators
In agricultural systems, bees are valued at about 7.6 billion dollars/ year (Losey and Vaughan 2006).
Bees play a vital role in the stability of both natural and managed ecosystems. In fact, nearly 84% of all flowering plant species depend directly on insect pollinators and many plants that can self pollinate still require bees to maintain genetic diversity.
in agricultural systems pollination services provided by bees are worth about 7.6 billion dollars a year, and bees directly contribute to an increase in yield of about 96% of all animal pollinated crops
Bees also rely on flowering plants, which provide resources like pollen and nectar for their own survival-and plants of course vary in their quality and quantity through space and time.

7. Pollinator Habitats
Habitat loss is primary driver of wild bee declines (Kearns et al. 1998)
High
Complexity
Low
As land-use intensifies to meet the demands of a growing human population, we’ve seen unprecedented losses in the amount of native, or semi-native habitat that is available to pollinators, and this is habitat containing important plant resources, and also important sites for nesting, and sometimes mating.
As of now, something like 40% of land (not covered by ice) has been altered to benefit us! And, with the amount of land dedicated to farming practices and intense management only projected to increase- it becomes increasingly important to understand the relationships between habitat complexity and pollinator fitness as well as the factors contributing to pollinator declines.

8. Pollinator Habitats Winfree et al. 2009
Here is some research that demonstrates different types of land disturbances activities influence pollinator communities.
Meta analysis of 121 independent studies from around the world.
Overall we are seeing a decrease in both the abundance and species richness of pollinators
Although some activities actually improve these numbers
In general, pollinator abundance and richness are decreasing across different types of landscape disturbance
Some forms of disturbance are worse than others

9. Pollinator Habitats Winfree et al. 2009
Worse in areas with extreme habitat loss
An increase need to conserve and restore diverse habitats that support pollinators!
And this trend gets more pronounced when comparing bee abundance and species richness between moderate and extreme habitat loss.
I think this meta-analysis (among other studies) demonstrates the need to conserve and restore diverse habitats that support pollinators

10. Longleaf Pine Savanna
Highly threatened, fire maintained ecosystem unique to the southeastern U.S.
Dominated by Pinus palustris
>4% of original pine forests remain
Degradation caused by many factors including:
Fire suppression
Logging and naval industry

11. Longleaf Pine Savanna How do these efforts affect native bees?
What is being done to restore the savanna?
Controlled burning
Harvesting trees
Hypothesis 1: Harvesting (cutting down trees to restore to savannah) trees to restore savannas will increase native bee diversity
Hypothesis 2: Remnant plots will have greater bee diversity than former agricultural sites
How do these efforts affect native bees?

12. Sites Remnant = Undisturbed longleaf pine stands
Savanna River Site, SC
Remnant = Undisturbed longleaf pine stands
Control = no restoration treatments
Harvest = trees removed to restore savanna
Post ag. = Former agricultural lands, planted with longleaf pines

13. Sites

14. Restoration Treatment
No significant differences in community composition. but both bee abundance and species richness increased in response to harvesting.
Community Composition

15. Bee response to habitat enhancements
Michigan SAFE Program
Bees per site (1 hr sampling)
This is part of the CRP’s SAFE program- which stands for State acres for wildlife enhancement. It’s basically a program where landowners can receive governmental money to develop beneficial habitats on their properties.
Members of our lab studied how these plantings influenced pollinators and found that in each year- more bees were found in the plantings than in controls- or un-enhanced landscapes

16. Habitat on farms for beneficial insects
Wild bees and natural enemies increase over time
And this translated into more pollinators (and natural enemies) visiting crops, when the plantings were placed nextto highbush blueberry. It was also seen that the number of pollinators visiting crops tended to increase over time.
Blaauw & Isaacs, 2014

17. Habitat can support increased yield*
Estimated yield per hectare (kg)
Grass
2011
2012
Costs of habitat establishment paid off within 4 years due to higher blueberry yields
2011
Which turned into a benefit for the grower- where he actually saw an increase in crop yield.

18. Insectary Plants for Beneficial Insects
Objectives
1. Identify plants adapted for dry soils that best support managed and native pollinators.
2. Identify the plant traits that are best predictors of pollinator attraction
3. Develop a tool as part of the MSU Native Plants website to select insectary plants for desired needs.
Ok so we know that beneficial habitat can increase pollinator abundance and species richness- but one issue that remains is selecting plant resources from the almost countless number of native wildflowers species found in Michigan.
This is where our project comes in:
It has a few main objectives.
also, how well do these plants establish
These would be plant traits such as floral color, plant height, the availability and quantity of resources such as pollen and nectar.
Of course, different people manage different types of landscapes. So this tool will allow you to characterize your interests and they type of landscape you wish to add resources too, and then suggest resources for that landscape.

19. Sampling Pollinators weekly observations and collections
2.5 minute samples am/pm
Observations for honey bees
Wild pollinator collections
Identify to species
Add photo

20. Plant Establishment Good Establishment Poor Establishment 2
Western Sunflower
Common Cinquefoil
Wild Bergamot
Prairie Coreopsis
Pale-leaved Sunflower
Yarrow
Gray Goldenrod
Whorled Milkweed
Early Goldenrod
Common Milkweed
Round-leaved Ragwort
Good Establishment
Here is a list of plant species that seem to establish well.
Poor Establishment
Western Sunflower
Common Cinquefoil
Wild Bergamot
Prairie Coreopsis
Pale-leaved Sunflower
Yarrow
Gray Goldenrod
Whorled Milkweed
Early Goldenrod
Common Milkweed
Round-leaved Ragwort
Western Sunflower
Common Cinquefoil
Wild Bergamot
Prairie Coreopsis
Pale-leaved Sunflower
Yarrow
Gray Goldenrod
Whorled Milkweed
Early Goldenrod
Common Milkweed
Round-leaved Ragwort 2

21. Pollinator Abundance Early Season Mid Season Late Season 48.125
Do not pay attention to the plant species along the x-axis but a few main take aways from this figure
Plants were selected so that the site would bloom throughout the season
Clear variation in attractiveness among plant species
General increase in active pollinators during the summer

22. Early Season (May - June)
This graph shows the number of pollinators collected per sample for early season plants
We collected honey bees on both the hairy penstemon and lance-leaved coreopsis
Syrphids were highly attracted to these as well as the yarrow
Wild bees were found primarily on the hairy penstemon and foxgloved beardtongue, but were also attracted to lance-leaved coreopsis.

23. Mid Season (July - Aug)
In mid season we saw more variation in attractiveness
Honey bees were mainly caught on Mountain mint, Spotted Bee Balm and Whorled milkweed, although the numbers for the last two plants were relatively small.
Syrphids were caught on Wild bergamot, black-eyed susan, and mountain mint
Wild bees were found on wild bergamot (this was primarily driven by bumble bee visitation), shrubby cinquefoil, early goldenrod, and spotted knapweed. We also collected a relatively high number of wild bees on whorled milkweed, which suggests this plant is beneficial to multiple types of pollinators, bees and monarch butterflys

24. Late Season (Aug - Oct)
47.25
During the late season we saw an increase in the number of honey bees foraging. This is likely due a higher stocking density at fields near the Clarksville research station
Honey bees were highly attractive to showy goldenrod but also found on Rosin weed, Pale-leaved Sunflower, Silky aster, and Sky Blue Aster.
Most syrphids were caught on western sunflower and pale-leaved sunflower
Wild bees were caught primarly on silky aster, sky blue aster, and showy goldenrod

25. Factors Affecting Flower Visitation
Results of multiple linear regressions of the abundance of bees observed on study plants during peak bloom against three floral characteristics. Probability values less than 0.05 are highlighted in green.

26. Common bees and associated plants
Mountain Mint
Pale-leaved Sunflower
Used as the primary pollinator for many insect pollinator crops
Social insects that live in large colonies.
If possible, individuals will specialize on a particular plant species, while as a colony they are generalist foragers.
The four plants that we observed honey bees visiting are Mountain mint, Rosin weed, Pale-leaved sunflower, and Showy goldenrod
Honey Bees
Rosin Weed
Showy Goldenrod

27. Common bees and associated plants
Showy Goldenrod
Wild Bergamot
Bumble bees are also social bees that live in large colonies underground. Most are native, and they can be used as managed crop pollinators in blueberry cropping systems. Bumble bees are interesting to me because some species (such as Bombus bimaculatus) seem to be primarily specialists, foraging mainly on wild bergamot. While others (such as Bombus impatiens) are primarily generalist foragers, visiting a variety of plants including foxglove beardtongue, showy goldenrod, and sky blue aster
Bumble Bees
Foxglove Beardtongue
Sky Blue Aster

28. Common bees and associated plants
Spotted Knapweed
Whorled Milkweed
Another group of bees that we commonly caught are the sweat bees. This is a large, diverse group of bees. They are solitary, meaning 1 female will build her own nest (usually underground or in cavities in wood made by other bugs) They are generalist foragers and visited a variety of plants throughout the summer including spotted knapweed, rattlesnake master, whorled milkweed, mountain mint.
Sweat Bees
Rattlesnake Master
Mountain Mint

29. Common bees and associated plants
Purple Coneflower
Yellow Coneflower
A unique group of bees called leafcutter bees actually cut out little pieces of leaf material or flower petal material to aid in the construction of their nests, which are usually in stems of dead plants. They will also nest in native bee hotels, or man-made stems that can be placed in gardens, and one species (commonly know as the alfalfa leafcutter) is managed for crop production. We have these at out field plots and I will show you more when we do the tour. We commonly saw these bees visiting purple coneflower, pale-leaved sunflower, yellow coneflower, and black-eyed susan
Leaf Cutter Bees
Pale-leaved Sunflower
Black-eyed Susan

30. Common bees and associated plants
Lance-leaved Coreopsis
Birdsfoot trefoil
The last group of bees I will talk about are the miner bees. These are also ground nesting, solitary bees. They are actually a really large group of bees with a nearly worldwide distribution. We collected them foraging from lance-leaved coreopsis, tall coreopsis, birdsfoot trefoil, and sky blue aster.
Miner Bees
Sky Blue Aster
Tall coreopsis

31. Anna Fiedler, Julianna (Tuell) Wilson

33. Summary Habitat is important for bees
Harvesting can positively influence pollinator communities
Habitat enhancements can benefit farmers!
Plants vary in establishment and attractiveness.
Resources are currently available to get you started 
1. Reinforces the need to plant a diversity of flowers to attract a diversity of bees. And that some plants might be particularly important for conserving a certain species or group of bees, others might be beneficial for a wide variety of bee species.
2. We have plants that did not establish at all and others we have to maintain because of how well they establish and spread
3. Plants vary in their size and floral color- we’ve also found that plants vary in the amount of nectar and pollen they produce, which might be important for pollinator attraction
4. These might be plants of high interest
5. This is the second year of sampling and we are excited to see how the data looks moving forward.

34. Thanks! Acknowledgements: Rufus Isaacs Doug Landis Jason Gibbs
Lars Brudvig
Funding sources