Integrated vegetation management within electrical transmission landscapes promotes floral resource and flower-visiting insect diversity

Abstract

Abstract Context Electrical transmission rights-of-way (ROW) are ubiquitous and critical infrastructure across the landscape. Active vegetation management of these ROW, a necessity to deliver electricity more safely, maintains these landscape features as stages of early successional habitat, a rarity in many regions, making these areas viable movement corridors for many taxa. Objectives The goals of this study were to (i) evaluate the effects of different landscape management practices on flowering plant and flower-visiting insect diversity and (ii) generate conservation management inferences considering electrical transmission landscape management. Methods In this study we tested the impact of three vegetation management levels across 18 sites. We evaluated the effects of treatment on bloom abundance and species richness as well as flower-visiting insect abundance and family richness. Results We identified 76541 flowers/inflorescences across 456 transects, including 188 species in 56 plant families. Additionally, we obtained data on 11361 flower-visitors representing 33 families from 2376 pan trap sets. High vegetation management favored the reduction of coarse woody debris in the sites and harbored the highest level of diversity of both floral resources and flower-visiting insects. Conclusions We show that we can align social and ecological values of ROW, ensuring their sustainability by applying regular and targeted integrated vegetation management. Thus, we can use ROW landscapes not only as an effective management strategy for the delivery of essential human services, but also to provide conservation benefits for wild pollinators.