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Landscape characterization of floral resources for pollinators in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States

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Abstract

Across agricultural areas of the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), floral resources are primarily found on public grasslands, roadsides, and private grasslands used as pasture or enrolled in federal conservation programs. Little research has characterized the availability of flowers across the region or identified the primary stakeholders managing lands supporting pollinators. We explored spatial and temporal variability in flower abundance and richness across multiple grassland categories (i.e. general grassland, conservation grassland, and engineered pollinator habitat) in the PPR from 2015 to 2018 and used these data to estimate the number of flowering stems present across the region on private and public land holdings. Both flowering plant abundance and richness were greatest on engineered pollinator habitat, but this land category encompassed < 0.01% of the total grassland area in the PPR. There was a steady decrease in flower abundance over the growing season across all land categories. We detected considerable variation in flower abundance and richness across grassland categories, indicating that not all natural or semi-natural covers provide similar value to pollinators. At a landscape scale, large land holdings such as privately-owned grasslands and Conservation Reserve Program lands contributed the greatest number of flowers by an order of magnitude, though these lands collectively did not support the greatest abundance of flowers per unit area. Our research depicts spatial and temporal variation in pollinator resources across the region. Further, our research will assist managers and policy makers in understanding the role of public and private lands and conservation programs in supporting pollinators.

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Data Availability

Flower count data reported in this paper are archived in the U.S. Geological Survey ScienceBase-Catalog (Otto et al. 2020). All land cover data are available at public repositories cited herein. Spatially explicit data associated with the Conservation Reserve program contain proprietary information and are not for public distribution.

Code availability

R code used to conduct analyses have limited availability due to the proprietary nature of the information. Contact the USDA Conservation Reserve Program for more information.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the numerous field technicians who assisted with plant transect surveys during this study. We thank private landowners for granting us access to their property and USDA staff for assisting us with locating CRP and EQIP enrollments. James Weaver was instrumental in designing the database supporting this effort. We thank Neal Niemuth and two anonymous reviewers for improving the manuscript. All private land information regarding CRP and EQIP were shared through a memorandum of understanding with the USDA. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Funding

Funding for this research was provided in-part by the United States Department of Agriculture-Farm Service Agency (17IAMRECRPHB1), United States Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service (673A7514178), and the Honey Bee Health Coalition and Keystone Policy Center.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68583, USA

    Autumn H. Smart

  2. U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Jamestown, ND, 58401, USA

    Autumn H. Smart, Clint R. V. Otto & Michael P. Simanonok

  3. U.S. Geological Survey, Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, Sioux Falls, SD, 57198, USA

    Alisa L. Gallant

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  1. Autumn H. Smart
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Correspondence to Autumn H. Smart.

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Communicated by Daniel Sanchez Mata.

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Alisa L. Gallant—Retired.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

10531_2021_2177_MOESM1_ESM.csv

Supplementary file1 Table 1. USDA Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) practices on which we conducted plant surveys. (CSV 1 KB)

10531_2021_2177_MOESM2_ESM.csv

Supplementary file2 Table 2. Number of surveys conducted among grassland classes and grassland categories by season (early, mid-, late) and year (2015 – 2018) in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. BBHF = Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund; CRP = Conservation Reserve Program; CP-42 = CRP Conservation Practice 42 (Pollinator Habitat); EQIP = Environmental Quality Incentives Program; WMA = Wildlife Management Area; WPA = Waterfowl Production Area. (CSV 4 KB)

10531_2021_2177_MOESM3_ESM.csv

Supplementary file3 Table 3. Flower abundances (floral stem counts) of all blooming plants (scientific and common names) observed flowering on transects from 2015 – 2018, and the grassland classes, categories, and practices on which they were surveyed in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. Indigenous status (native or introduced) is according to the USDA PLANTS database (https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/java/). BBHF = Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund; CRP = Conservation Reserve Program; CP-42 = CRP Conservation Practice 42 (Pollinator Habitat); EQIP = Environmental Quality Incentives Program; WMA = Wildlife Management Area; WPA = Waterfowl Production Area. (CSV 139 KB)

10531_2021_2177_MOESM4_ESM.tiff

Supplementary file4 Fig 1. Mean floral stem abundance per transect of native and introduced plants among surveyed major grassland classes by season, 2015–2018 in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. Errors bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM). (TIFF 7911 KB)

10531_2021_2177_MOESM5_ESM.tiff

Supplementary file5 Fig 2. Mean flower stem abundance per transect among surveyed grassland categories by season, 2015–2018 in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. Errors bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM). BBHF = Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund; CRP = Conservation Reserve Program; CP-42 = CRP Conservation Practice 42 (Pollinator Habitat);EQIP = Environmental Quality Incentives Program; WMA = Wildlife Management Area; WPA = Waterfowl Production Area. (TIFF 7911 KB)

10531_2021_2177_MOESM6_ESM.tiff

Supplementary file6 Fig 3. Mean plant species richness per transect of native and introduced plants among surveyed major grassland classes, 2015–2018 in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. Errors bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM). (TIFF 7911 KB)

10531_2021_2177_MOESM7_ESM.tiff

Supplementary file7 Fig 4. Mean plant species richness per transect among surveyed grassland categories, 2015–2018 in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. Errors bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM). BBHF = Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund; CP-42 = CRP Conservation Practice 42 (Pollinator Habitat); CRP = Conservation Reserve Program; EQIP = Environmental Quality Incentives Program; WMA = Wildlife Management Area; WPA = Waterfowl Production Area. (TIFF 7911 KB)

10531_2021_2177_MOESM8_ESM.tiff

Supplementary file8 Fig 5. Principle coordinates analysis (PCO) plot comparing Grassland Class and Season of sampling in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. Each point represents a single transect survey. Black circles are Conservation Grassland; orange triangles are Engineered Pollinator Habitat; and blue squares are General Grassland. Panel A is Early-season (June 16–July 15); B is Mid-season (July 16–August 15); and C is Late-season (August 16–September 15). (TIFF 3692 KB)

10531_2021_2177_MOESM9_ESM.tiff

Supplementary file9 Fig 6. Mean floral stem abundance and plant species richness per transect among conservation programs and practices on private lands in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States.Letters denote significant differences (α ≤ 0.05) and errors bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM). All conservation practices with less than 50 transect sampling events were removed prior to analysis. CP = Conservation Reserve Program Conservation Practice; EQIP = Environment Quality Incentives Program. (TIFF 9229 KB)

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Smart, A.H., Otto, C.R.V., Gallant, A.L. et al. Landscape characterization of floral resources for pollinators in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. Biodivers Conserv 30, 1991–2015 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02177-9

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