Pollination Security for Fruit and Vegetable Crops in the Northeast (collaborative project with Frank Drummond, Aaron Hoshide, Sam Hanes, Alison Dibble at UMaine)

Duration

January 2012 - December 2016

Narrative

Pollinator-dependent crops require a readily available source of pollinators. Although honey bees provide this service for a variety of crops, a diverse pollinator community is needed to ensure sustainability in in this service. Native bee pollinators potentially contribute to this sustainability, however, knowledge about factors that affect their abundance and distributions is lacking. Our team from the University of Maine (Frank Drummond, Cyndy Loftin, Aaron Hoshide, Sam Hanes, Alison Dibble) is collaborating with teams from the University of Massachusetts (A. Averill, J.P. Burand, T.H. Stevens, G.Xu), University of Connecticut (K.Stoner, B.Eitzer), University of Tennessee (J. Skinner), and Cornell University (B.N. Danforth) to examine a variety of factors (from individual pollinators to the landscapes they inhabit) that potentially affect pollinators of fruit and vegetable crops in the northeastern US, and coordinates with the agricultural community through demonstration projects and collaborative interactions to improve distribution and implementation of research results by growers.