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ARS Home » Plains Area » Sidney, Montana » Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory » Pest Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #381323
Research Project: Biological Control and Habitat Restoration for Invasive Weed Management

Location: Pest Management Research

Title: Solar energy development impacts flower-visiting beetles and flies in the Mojave Desert

Author
item GRODSKY, STEVEN - Cornell University
item Campbell, Joshua
item HERNANDEZ, REBECCA - University Of California, Davis

Submitted to: Biological Conservation
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/16/2021
Publication Date: 10/1/2021
Citation: Grodsky, S.M., Campbell, J.W., Hernandez, R.R. 2021. Solar energy development impacts flower-visiting beetles and flies in the Mojave Desert. Biological Conservation. 263. Article 109336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109336.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109336

Interpretive Summary: Deserts contain a high diversity of pollinating insects but are also prime areas for solar energy development. Additionally, non-bees are often overlooked as pollinators and frequently not included in pollinating bee research. Our objective was to determine how non-bee flower visiting insects respond to various vegetation management techniques that are utilized within large solar facilities in the Mojave Desert. Using blue vane traps, we collected non-bee flower visiting insects for two growing seasons (spring of 2018 and 2019). Overall, we found non-bee flower visitor taxa were greater in undeveloped controls sites compared to areas where vegetation was managed for solar power. Our results suggest that disturbance from solar energy development negatively affected flower-visiting beetles, wasps, and flies in the Mojave Desert. This disruption of non-bee insect pollinator communities from solar energy development in deserts may lead to cascading, negative effects on biodiversity, pollination services, and desert ecosystem resiliency.

Technical Abstract: Deserts are biodiversity hotspots for both insect pollinators and the plants with which they have coevolved. Concurrently, deserts are prioritized recipient environments for solar energy development that creates novel, anthropogenic disturbance in desert ecosystems and initiates land-use change across desert landscapes. Pollinators confer ecosystem services yet anthropogenically driven land-use change has played a large role in their decline globally. Our objective was to elucidate relationships between solar energy development and non-bee insect flower visitors at Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS, 392 MW) in the Ivanpah Valley of the Mojave Desert. We used blue vane traps to collect non-bee insect flower visitors in treatments that represented solar energy development decisions, including site preparation and establishment of microrefugia, replicated across three power blocks in ISEGS and in undeveloped desert shrub surrounding ISEGS from 5 April to 5 May 2018 and 2019. We determined that count and taxa richness of non-bee flower visitors and, in several cases, counts of individual non-bee flower visitor taxa were greater in undeveloped controls sites than in ISEGS. Our results suggest that disturbance from solar energy development negatively affected flower-visiting beetles, wasps, and flies in the Mojave Desert. Disruption of non-bee insect pollinator communities from solar energy development in deserts may lead to cascading, negative effects on biodiversity, pollination services, and ecosystem resiliency that are inharmonious with holistic approaches to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.