Investigating the Impacts of Habitat Restoration and Management on Pollinator Biodiversity

Abstract

Understanding pollinator communities is crucial to the interpretation of ecosystem functioning, and pollinator biodiversity can be used as an indicator to evaluate management techniques being implemented. I employed multiyear pollinator survey techniques to assess the richness, abundance, and Shannon diversity index in prairie areas subjected to different management activities. The mean abundance of the most effective pollinator species in the native and restoration sites was 2.35 (0.91, 3.79) higher than in the site dominated by invasive reed canary grass, but richness and the Shannon index did not show a statistically significant effect of site. All metrics were affected by trap color and by temporal changes. Findings revealing the impact of trap color were unexpected and warrant further research in this area. These conclusions indicate that current restoration management has positive influences for the abundance of pollinators, and pollinators may benefit from increased floral color diversity that extends throughout the entire growing season. Further the restoration management may benefit from increased attention to the edge habitat surrounding the reed canary grass treatment area.