Helping or hurting? Identifying the role of CP42 in promoting or diluting parasites for pollinators

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Helping or hurting? Identifying the role of CP42 in promoting
or diluting parasites for pollinators

Worldwide, sustainable agriculture is dependent on insect
pollination. However, many different stressors such as habitat
loss, pesticides, and parasites threaten pollinator health,
leading to widespread declines. To combat these declines, the
USDA has established pollinator habitat in cooperation with
farmers through the Conservation Reserve Program’s Pollinator
Habitat Initiative (CP42), but there exist no formal measures in
place to evaluate the efficacy of these habitats in promoting the
health of pollinators. This issue is heightened in the midwestern
United States, where sparse natural habitat interacts with other
pollinator stressors, like parasites, to exacerbate pollinator
declines. Microbial gut parasites are frequently cited as a major
concern for bee pollinator health, but patterns of parasite
infection and transmission have only recently been studied in a
landscape context, and have not at all been studied in the more
agriculturally intensive areas of the United States. As isolated
patches of flowers, CP42 habitat could concentrate parasites in
one area, and as a result decrease the health of visiting
pollinators. However, research conducted in other natural
ecosystems shows that areas with increased plant diversity can
dilute parasite transmission, leading to reduced pollinator
infection. Thus, in regards to parasites, CP42 has the potential
to both help and harm pollinator health in agroecosystems. My
proposed project intends to address this concern by (1)
determining the status of pollinator parasites in CP42 habitat
and identifying landscape factors contributing to parasite
incidence in Illinois and (2) exploring the efficacy of CP42 at
locally diluting and mitigating parasite transmission. To achieve
these objectives, I will sample bumble bees, an economically
important group of pollinators whose parasites are well-studied,
as well as the plant and bee parasite communities on the CP42
land of farmers in East-Central Illinois in summer 2025. I will
evaluate what landscape-level factors in CP42 habitat influence
parasite incidence and abundance, and what qualities of the plant
community contribute to any detected patterns. These findings
will be used to improve knowledge of CP42 in the Midwest and
generate potential management strategies which farmers can
implement on their CP42 land to mitigate parasites and produce
healthier pollinators for sustainable agriculture. The results of
this project will be summarized and distributed through
scientific articles, personalized farmer reports, and extension
publications, so as to reach researchers and farmers and increase
the efficacy of CP42 in the Midwest.

Learning and action outcomes will target farmers in Illinois
currently enrolled or interested in enrolling in the Conservation
Reserve Program (CRP) Pollinator Habitat Initiative (CP42). This
project intends to identify the hidden threats, specifically bee
parasitism, in CP42 habitat while simultaneously identifying ways
to mitigate those threats to contribute to improving the CP42
program and its benefits to pollinator communities. The overall
learning outcome of this project is to inform farmers of the
effectiveness of their CP42 land at supporting pollinators and
reliably improving pollinator health by mediating bumble bee
parasitism. Farmers have consistently expressed concern about the
efficacy of the CP42 habitats given their landscape context
(Harmon-Threatt, personal communications). By investigating some
of those concerns, this project will provide concrete
recommendations for improving CP42 habitats and help allay
anxieties around the program. The ultimate action outcome of this
project is that farmers will implement these recommendations to
manage their CP42 lands to prevent parasite transmission and
create a more beneficial environment for essential pollinators.
For farmers not currently enrolled in CRP or CP42, this project
will use extension documents and information sharing via NRCS to
communicate that the program is effective at providing
pollinators with quality habitat. The resulting action outcome is
a potential increase in enrollments in the CRP and CP42 programs.
Results from this project will thus form the basis for future
improvement and foundation of pollinator habitat that efficiently
serves sustainable agriculture by combating critical pollinator
threats.