BeeContour
About one third of the world’s food crops depend on pollination services provided by bees and other pollinating insects. However, low-diversity, intensive agricultural landscapes are contributing to pollinator declines. Increasing plant diversity in agricultural fields could help reverse this trend by providing important food and habitat resources for pollinators. Strip cropping, which alternates strips of wild vegetation with agricultural crops, is a promising approach to enhance agricultural biodiversity.
The goal of the BeeContour project is to evaluate the effect of strip cropping on the abundance and diversity of insect pollinators in experimental and working farms in the state of Hessen. The project will also assess the economic impact of strip cropping by quantifying the value of the ecological services it provides as well as the associated management costs.
Coordinated by: Prof. Dr. Andreas Gattinger and Dipl- Biol. Nadja Kasperczyk
Team: Dr. Dennis Baulechner, Prof. Dr. Volkmar Wolters, Dr. Frank Jauker
Year: 2021
Funding: Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung
Duration: 01.07.2021 – 30.06.2024
Further information: https://www.uni-giessen.de/en/faculties/f09/institutes/agronomy2/farming/researchprojects/beecontour?set_language=en