Collaborative Research: Community Disassembly and Ecosystem Function: Pollination Services Across Agro-natural Landscapes

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Human domination of the earth has led to rapid changes in ecosystem functioning, and has degraded many functions that are essential to human survival, such as climate regulation, water purification and crop pollination. Research on ecosystem function has traditionally been done at small spatial scales using artificially-assembled communities. We therefore lack a full understanding of how human activities influence function in real landscapes where the changes are occurring. The proposed study will investigate a critical ecological function, pollination, in the context of human-induced land use change. The researchers will examine pollination provided to native plant species growing in natural habitat fragments, and to crop plants in agricultural areas. Both systems will be considered across a gradient of land use intensity, i.e., with study sites surrounded to varying extents by agriculture and urban/suburban development. The following questions will be investigated: (1) How do pollinator communities change (in terms of number of species, community composition, abundance and biomass) with increasing land use intensity? (2) What are the functional consequences of pollinator community change for native plant and crop pollination? (3) What environmental factors most strongly influence pollination function?The work will benefit society at large, because as human populations grow, it becomes increasingly important to maintain ecosystem services that prevent shortages of water, energy and food. Crop pollination provided by wild species, which depend on natural habitats, can provide economic incentives for conserving these habitats. The investigators will transmit the results of their study to land owners and land managers through workshops, manuals, the media, and collaborative projects with conservation and farming organizations. The broader impacts of this work will also include promoting teaching, training and learning by providing opportunities for independent and collaborative undergraduate projects, focusing on women from Bryn Mawr College.