Improving urban habitat management for insect pollinators and people

This fellowship will improve the value of UK urban areas for insect pollinators by working with important stakeholder groups including urban land managers, policymakers, conservation practitioners, business, academic researchers and the landscape industry. While nature reserves and farmland have many pollinator initiatives in place, urban areas do not despite supporting many pollinator species.

Why the work is important
Insects such as bumblebees, hoverflies and butterflies pollinate crops and wild flowers providing an important ecosystem service. Pollinator conservation is important for global food security and the value of pollination services by animals is estimated at £129bn per year [1]. Reported declines in insect pollinators have serious implications for food production [2]. Concern over pollinator declines is high on policy agendas; Defra will publish a National Pollinator Strategy in July 2014 and a Welsh Pollinators Action Plan was published in 2013. One of six core areas of Defra's Strategy specifically addresses pollinator-friendly management of towns, cities and public land. Our research shows that urban areas can support important pollinator communities, provide connecting habitat across the wider landscape and pollination services for urban food production [3,4]. Safeguarding biodiversity across the UK landscape is a key government priority [5,6] with planning authorities required to protect priority species, including pollinators, as well as minimise impacts on biodiversity and provide net gains where possible [7]. Pollinator services will be the first fast-track assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Context
The fellowship will build on research carried out during the 'Urban Pollinators: their Ecology and Conservation' project, funded by the Insect Pollinators Initiative (NERC, BBSRC, Defra, Scottish Government and The Wellcome Trust). I was the lead postdoctoral researcher and co-ordinated all aspects of the research (2011-14). The project studied pollinators in replicate cities, farms and nature reserves, sampled 700 sites in four cities to assess the suitability of urban habitats for pollinators and planted 60 pollen and nectar-rich flower meadows to examine their benefit for pollinators. The KE activities will draw more widely on other relevant urban research and the expertise of researchers in the eight other Insect Pollinators Initiative projects. I will also build on Lynn Dicks' NERC KE Fellowship (2011-14) by applying her Delivery Group approach to specifically address pollinator conservation in urban landscapes. Dicks' fellowship focused on pollinator conservation in rural and agricultural landscapes; the proposed fellowship specifically targets urban areas.

Fellowship KE programme
During this three-year fellowship I will apply KE processes to improve the management of UK urban areas for insect pollinators and promote the uptake of pollinator friendly management practices. Urban habitats are a complex mosaic of public and privately-owned land and six work packages will bring KE to a broad spectrum of stakeholders: i) incorporation of research findings into policy recommendations, ii) establishment of a stakeholders' Urban Pollinator Conservation Delivery Group to identify and address priority knowledge needs, iii) review, workshop and trials on road verge and amenity grassland management, iv) development of a pollinator lawn mix in collaboration with industry, v) promoting uptake of pollinator-friendly habitat management by private business via demonstration sites and vi) producing case studies on initiatives developed in Bristol to apply nationally.

Refs: [1] Gallai et al. 2008 Ecol Econ; [2] Breeze et al. 2014 PLoS ONE; [3] Baldock et al. in review Proc Roy Soc B; [4] Baldock et al. in prep; [5] Defra 2011 The Natural Choice: securing the value of nature; [6] Defra 2011 Biodiversity 2020; [7] DCLG 2012 National Planning Policy Framework