ELA Webinar: Science in Action: Ten Years of restoring native plant-pollinator functional diversity at Breakneck Hill

Plant-pollinator diversity is declining at an alarming rate worldwide, with many historically abundant plant and pollinator species undergoing rapid local extinction and others soon to follow if immediate conservation action is not taken. The continued loss of native plant-pollinator diversity poses a significant threat to health and integrity of terrestrial ecosystems due to the fundamental functional role that ‘pollination products’ play in supporting wildlife diversity across trophic levels. Habitat loss and degradation are widely thought to be significant drivers of pollination system decline; however, surprisingly few current habitat management plans focused on pollinator restoration are based on empirical data, making them ineffective at attracting and sustaining imperiled species. In this talk, Dr. Rob Gegear will discuss how he has used a data-driven, species-level ecological approach to successfully restore native plant-pollinator functional diversity at Breakneck Hill, a 40 acres of conservation land located in Southborough MA. He will also highlight how ‘eco-technology’ and crowdsourced data collection was used to dramatically reduce the amount of time required to develop and implement effective management strategies for imperiled systems.

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FREE for members
$10 for non-members

About our speaker: Robert J. Gegear is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at UMass Dartmouth. He received his PhD from Western University in Canada and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto (Canada) and in the Department of Neurobiology at UMASS Medical School. His research focuses on the ecology, evolution, psychology, and conservation of pollination systems.