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.