Browsing by Author "Lane, Ian"
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Item Floral Enrichment of Turf Lawns to Benefit Pollinating Insects(2016-05) Lane, IanTurf lawns are a common landscape modification in many anthropogenic habitats, and often the largest contributor to “green space” in urban landscapes. Despite the ubiquitous nature of lawns their function is largely subjective, based on the aesthetic values of its owner. This flexibility offers unique opportunities to develop cultural practices and planting strategies to meet alternative goals that land managers may have, such as habitat enhancement for pollinating insects. Within this thesis I explore a range of establishment and management techniques of various turf and forb species, with the goal of providing recommendations to lawn managers for maximizing bloom of bee friendly flowers. The results from these studies are a significant first step in the creation and management of flowering lawns, and will provide a basis for future work as the value of flowering lawns to bees continues to grow.Item The Role of Prairie Restorations in the Conservation of Native Bee Communities Across a Gradient of Agricultural Land Use(2021-05) Lane, IanEcological restoration is an important tool in the conservation of tallgrass prairies and native bees in intensively farmed regions. However, these same agricultural landscapes may alter the types of bees that can colonize and persist in prairie restorations due to fragmentation and biotic homogenization. My dissertation explores how bee community diversity, heterogeneity, and composition in prairie restorations change in response to an increasing gradient of agricultural land cover in Western Minnesota. In an effort to better understand if agricultural land cover impacts the ability of prairies restorations to conserve at-risk bee species, I utilize this gradient to compare native bee communities in prairie restorations to those in prairie remnants, and attempt to compare differences in rare and declining species. Bee communities in prairie restorations were surprisingly diverse and heterogeneous despite high levels of agricultural land cover. While there were differences in bee community composition between restored and remnant prairies, these differences were related to dramatically different floral communities. Overall, my results show that bee communities in prairie restorations are surprisingly resilient to high proportions of surrounding agricultural land, and suggest that highly agricultural landscapes should not deter restoration and conservation practitioners from restoring degraded land in these regions.