Ashley Bennett authors article on pollinator response to bioenergy production
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EmailPostdoctoral entomology scientist Ashley Bennett is the lead author on a published PLOS-ONE article on how improving bee habitat can boost biofuel and food crop production.
Postdoctoral entomology scientist Ashley Bennett is the lead author on a published PLOS-ONE article on how improving bee habitat can boost biofuel and food crop production. According to the journal paper, bioenergy policies based strictly on economic or energy considerations that lack attention to biodiversity impacts will likely have serious consequences for the conservation of wild bees and their pollination services.
Bennett collaborated on the project with scientists at MSU and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their findings suggest that the expansion of annually planted bioenergy crops could reduce bee abundance by as much as 71 percent and bee diversity by as much as 28 percent. In contrast, converting annual crops on marginal soils to perennial grasslands could increase bee abundance by as much as 600 percent and bee diversity by as much as 53 percent.
“Our analysis of bee community composition suggested a similar pattern, with bee communities becoming less diverse under annual crop bioenergy production and transitioning toward a more diverse community dominated by wild bees with grasslands,” Bennett said. “Models like the ones employed here are powerful tools to test the implications of bioenergy policies. Our work suggests that policies based strictly on economic or energy considerations might have important consequences for pollinator conservation.”
Rufus Isaacs, MSU entomologist, who also is leading a national research effort to find alternative pollinators for specialty crops, was involved in the project. He said transitioning the landscape into either annual or perennial biofuel crops will affect wild bees, which annually contribute $3.1 billion in pollination services to U.S. agriculture.
