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Section Symposium

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Pollinator Work on Federal Lands

Forests for the bees: Enhancing pollinator habitat in log landings

Tuesday, November 12, 2024
4:55 PM – 5:10 PM MST
Location: Phoenix Convention Center, 124 AB, PCC
Oral Presentation
Understanding the effects of forest management on wild bee communities is essential for their conservation. One understudied component of managed forests and their effects on wild bees are log landings. These are staging areas for logging where logs are stored before transport. While log landings are considered degraded pollinator habitat due to soil compaction and limited vegetation, these spaces offer potential for floral-rich habitat improvement. The Pollinator Habitat in Log Landings (PHiLL) project started with managers at Hoosier, Shawnee, and Mark Twain National Forests, and aims to test whether soil treatments can reduce soil compaction and improve plant growth and whether seeding log landings with a native pollinator seed mix benefits the bee community. In March 2021, managers treated five landings on the three National Forests with ripping and biochar soil amendments and seeded landings in a split-plot design. We compared these treated landings to five unenhanced landings in each forest by sampling bee communities during summers 2021-2023. We conducted three rounds of bee sampling in each forest per year using pan traps, standardized netting, and soil emergence traps. Preliminary results suggest seeded log landings support abundant and diverse wild bee communities, including species of conservation concern. Ground-nesting bee nests were found in all soil treatments, indicating that log landings can provide nesting habitat for the 80% of wild bees that are ground nesters. This study adds to the literature on how forest management affects wild bees and informs best management practices for creating high-quality pollinator habitat on log landings.