Pollinators and forestry
How forestry management practices impact pollinators and their interaction with wild flowers.
– Dr. Carla Essenberg and Celine Pichette, Bates College
– Dr. Christopher Buddle and Katrina Di Bacco, McGill University
Pollinators can be used as indicators of biodiversity, because most plants and animals depend on them to survive. The goal of this project was to determine if forestry management practices impact pollinators and how they interact with plants. At Kenauk, three forest management techniques have been practiced, creating three types of habitat, old growth areas which have never been disturbed, strip cut areas where logged and forested strips are alternated as well as recent clear cut areas (to manage a failing plantation of non-native species). The objectives of this project included: 1) to create an inventory of pollinator species at Kenauk and 2) to determine how different forestry techniques impact pollinators and plant-pollinator interactions. Two methods were used to reach these objectives, a passive method using yellow pan traps and an active method with netting.
Pollinator community comparison between remote and suburban forests.
– Dr. Christopher Buddle and Mercy Harris, McGill University
This project aims to compare the pollinator communities of the contiguous forest at Kenauk with a suburban forest on the Island of Montreal. The goal of the project is to identify any differences in pollinator diversity and abundance, and how any differences relate to existing literature on the impacts of fragmentation and development on insect communities. Identification of the insect specimens collected during the summer is ongoing and identification to lower taxonomic levels has focused primarily on Dipterans (flies).
