Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Rocky Mountain CESU

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The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research on agro-ecosystem based management approaches to improve pollinator diversity and activity on croplands. The ecological impacts of modern agriculture with intensive cropping systems that incorporate herbicide tolerant Genetically Modified (GM) crops on pollinator health and diversity is becoming an increasing cause for concern. Studies on the expanding cultivation of herbicide tolerant GM crops such as canola, where seed production is enhanced by cross-pollination, have shown that bee abundances were the lowest in fields with GM varieties. Canola (Brassica napus), provides significant amounts of nectar and pollen for foraging honeybees, bumblebees and other native bees, but is also extremely sensitive to weed competition and chemical applications. The herbicide tolerant GM canola provides a viable solution to canola cultivation by allowing herbicide application for weed elimination. However, pollinating insects, are known to use the within field weed vegetation extensively for food and nesting. An agro-ecosystem based management of providing pollinator strips with bee forage around the crop fields, in hedge rows and as buffer zones can potentially promote and sustain pollinator populations. These pollinator strips would enable spillover of pollinators to crop fields improving pollination efficiency and increasing seed production.

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