SIU researchers conducting pollinator insect inventory

SIU News


Southern Illinois University Carbondale graduate student Casey Bryan is netting pollinators in a clover cover crop plot in Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge. She and other SIU researchers are participating in a three-part study with funding from the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The study is testing flowering cover crops for efficient weed suppression, pollinator habitat and water quality enhancement. (Photo by Russell Bailey)

July 24, 2017
SIU researchers conducting pollinator insect inventory
by Andrea Hahn
CARBONDALE, Ill. – Armed with butterfly nets and pan traps, a team of researchers from Southern Illinois University Carbondale visits flowers in the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge and the Shawnee National Forest. Its members are stalking bees, butterflies, moths, flies and beetles – all known as pollinators. 
The team is conducting a comprehensive pollinator inventory on federally owned lands in Southern Illinois. The survey is part of a larger study that includes flowering cover crops for weed management and water quality enhancement.   
Sedonia Sipes, associate professor of plant biology, is heading up the pollinator insect survey. It’s a major undertaking. The team goal of visiting 50 sites in Crab Orchard and in the Shawnee National Forest. She and student researchers are collecting pollinators from different habitat types, and, because insect populations turn over by season, will return to some sites each season. 
On any given day in the field, three to five teams of two to three students each are collecting pollinators -- bees, butterflies, moths, flies and beetles – using pan traps and netting. The pan traps, which catch a wider array of insects than is possible with hand netting, are small water-and-detergent-filled bowls in colors attractive to pollinators. Hand netting allows for precise recording of information, including the flower the pollinator was collected from and the GPS coordinates of its exact location. 
Field days are often full, ...

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