Bumblebee conservation in agricultural landscapes - the role of landscape structure and the Environmental Land Management Scheme

This PhD project will examine the role of landscape structure, networks of habitats and the competition between managed and wild pollinators on wild bumblebee conservation in agricultural landscapes. This research will examine the broad research question: "What is the effect of landscape structure on bumblebee populations?" Answering this question will inform how

current Environmental Land Management Schemes and international recommendations for pollinator conservation can be more effective in helping maintain and restore bumblebee populations. The research will be set in a collection of nature reserves and a farm level experimental landscape in Cambridgeshire, the United Kingdom, where field surveys and experiments

involving lab-reared bumblebees and honeybees will take place. Using lab- reared Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) from wild-caught queens, colony fitness will be investigated alongside bumblebee use of varied landscape features such as, woodlands, bare soil, and hedgerows. Bumblebee resource use will be tracked by following their movement through

the landscape, via pollen analysis, and a novel eDNA analysis method. In addition, indicators of colony fitness, including foraging success and colony size, will be measured. Data will be collated to shape networks of bumblebees, forage plants, and landscape feature interactions to draw conclusions on habitat resilience and robustness. This data will reveal the

scale of habitat restoration that is needed in agricultural landscapes. To complement this, competition with other pollinators, such as managed honeybees, will be examined through replicated field experiments with bumblebees and honeybee hives in varying stocking densities. The outcomes of this research will fill a research gap on wild pollinator landscape use, and

the competition between wild and managed pollinators, and it will be utilised to produce policy-relevant recommendations for evidence-based land management policies at national and regional scales.