Informing Conservation Program Targeting for Cost-Effective Integrated Pollinator-Pest Management

Pollinator-dependent crops–mostly fruits, vegetables, and nuts–tend to be high-valued, high-nutrition food and shortages in the availability of pollination services could be devastating from both nutritional and economic perspectives. Recent declines in both managed and wild pollinators have been attributed in part to habitat loss and pesticide exposure. Growers of pollinator-dependent crops are thus confronted with potential on-farm tradeoffs between effective pest control and successful pollination and their decision making is further complicated because pollinators and pesticides often cross property boundaries. However, growers differ in their knowledge of both the pollination services provided by insects as well as impacts of pesticide exposure on such services. They also differ in their willingness to adjust management practices to address these impacts, and these differences likely depend on the particular cropscape (i.e., the land-use patterns and specific crops grown) within which the grower operates. This research project will first develop an integrated pollinator- pesticide cropscape typology that places each county in the continental U.S. along a pollinator risk-reward gradient. The research will then conduct grower surveys in select cropscapes to answer the following questions: (i) How aware are growers of the different pathways through which pollinators are exposed to pesticides? (ii) Will provisioning of information regarding the damages of pesticides and the benefits of pollinator habitat offer enough private incentive for growers to change their management practices or are additional policies or programs, such as payments for habitat conservation or pesticide abatement, warranted? (iii) How do differences among growers and cropscapes vary across the U.S. and how can we use this information to guide cost-effective spatial targeting of federal, state, and local pollinator conservation programs?