Conservation and Restoration Priorities for Wild Pollinator Habitat

Wild insect pollination has significant positive effects on pollinator-dependent crop production. While managed honeybees are often used to provide pollination to pollinator-dependent crops, visits by wild insect pollinators have been shown to be more effective in increasing fruit set than managed pollinators, and wild insect pollination increases fruit set even when managed pollinator visitation is high (Garibaldi et al. 2013). The total value of the pollination services provided by wild, native insects has been estimated at $3.07 billion annually (2003 dollars) in the United States (Losey & Vaughan 2006). To assess the spatial distribution of potential wild insect pollination, we mapped the supply of potential wild pollinator habitat (forest, grassland, wetland, and shrubland land cover types) and the demand for pollination (directly pollinator-dependent crops). A foraging travel distance for temperate native bees (1308 meters) was used to estimate relative pollinator activity on cropland based on distance from habitat. We also calculated the proportion of pollinator habitat within pollinator travel distance of crops. Methods for this analysis were adapted from the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative mapping project (Olander et al. 2017). This information was summarized by county and subwatershed (HUC 12) to identify regional priority areas for conservation and restoration of pollinator habitat. Datasets provided include county and subwatershed shapefiles identifying priority areas and including attributes used to select priorities, and raster datasets used to calculate those attributes.