- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The seminar, part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's spring quarter seminars, will be hosted by associate professor/pollination ecologist Neal Williams.
"The supply of managed honeybees for crop pollination service is both increasingly uncertain and being outpaced by a growing demand," Lonsdorf says in his abstract. "It is increasingly recognized that farmers should respond by integrating native pollinator-friendly habitat into standard farming practices. Furthermore, recent findings indicate that both farm and landscape-level factors affect the supply of pollinators."
"This begs the question, how much pollinator-friendly is needed in the landscape to maximize yields? Here, I apply a quantitative model of pollination service to answer this question as a function of a crop's dependence on native pollination. Not surprisingly, as the dependence on pollination increases, the optimal amount of pollinator-friendly habitat in the landscape increases. Moreover, as the quality of on-farm habitat for pollinators increases, the optimal amount of crop in the landscape increases. We uncover a pollination service version of the “tragedy of the commons” in which an individual may increase their profits by converting pollinator-providing habitat to crop while the entire landscape's value declines."
Said Williams: "Eric is an expert in spatial modeling of ecosystems services including pollination and also in decision analysis. Eric's landscape models of pollinators and pollination services form the basis of several recent global reviews of pollination response to anthropogenic disturbance and environmental change."
Lonsdorf received his doctorate in ecology, evolution and behavior in 2004 from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus, and his bachelor's degree in 1996 in biology (magna cum laude) from Carleton College, Northfield, Minn.
Prior to joining Franklin and Marshall, he worked for the Chicago Botanic Garden and directed the Lincoln Park Zoo's Urban Wildlife Institute in Chicago. He currently develops ecological models for decision-makers faced with challenging problems in conservation biology and natural resource management.
Lonsdorf's seminar is scheduled to be video-recorded for later posting on UCTV.
List of Spring Quarter Seminars