On-site floral resources and surrounding landscape characteristics impact pollinator biodiversity at solar parks

There is increasing land use change for solar parks and growing recognition that they could be used to support insect pollinators. However, understanding of pollinator response to solar park developments is limited and empirical data are lacking.
We combine field observations with landcover data to quantify the impact of on-site floral resources and surrounding landscape characteristics on solar park pollinator abundance and species richness. We surveyed pollinators and flowering plants at 15 solar parks across England in 2021, used a landcover map to assess the surrounding high-quality habitat and aerial imagery to measure woody linear features (hedgerows, woodland edges and lines of trees).
In total, 1,397 pollinators were recorded, including 899 butterflies (64%), 171 hoverflies (12%), 161 bumble bees (12%), 157 moths (11%) and nine honeybees (< 1%). At least 30 pollinator species were observed, the majority of which were common, generalist species.
Pollinator biodiversity varied ..., , , # On-site floral resources and surrounding landscape characteristics impact pollinator biodiversity at solar parks

This dataset contains primary field and secondary landcover data relating to 15 anonymised solar parks across England. Solar parks were visited in the summer of 2021 and on each visit, vegetation and pollinator surveys were undertaken at ten locations within the park. The cover of high quality habitat and density of woody linear features in 0 - 500 m and 500 - 1000 m buffer zones surrounding each solar park were determined using a GIS.

# Description of the data and file structure

Below, detail about each column in the Excel spreadsheet is provided:

**month** - the month of the survey.

**site** - the solar park (represented by a random letter to ensure anonymisation).

**management** - general observations of how the solar park was being managed at the time of the survey.

**survey_point** - the location of the quadrat/transect within the solar park (10 per park, per ...