
Agroecosytems
How we manage our agricultural landscapes has big implications for the amount of food, animals and fiber that are produced with effects on the livelihoods of people and vibrance of rural communities. But agricultural ecosystems also support wildlife, clean our air, help regulate the climate, capture water and maintain the very processes that support agriculture and people. Therefore, the management of agricultural landscapes needs to understand the tradeoffs between the production of food (and more recently, energy) and income, and the other so-called ecosystem services that also support human-well being. Our group is broadly interested in understanding how insects that we consider beneficial, such as pollinators or lady beetles, are affected by management and policies that can change the composition of the landscape – that is, how much agricultural land there is compared to forest, grasslands or urban areas, and their arrangement in the landscape. In addition, decisions at the farm-level, including the amount of non-agricultural set-asides, tillage, cover crops, pesticide use, fertilizer applications, and weed control, also can have big consequences for insects within and surrounding the agroecosystem. By better understanding the local and landscape-level effects on our beneficial insects, we can better act to manage and conserve those species that support agriculture.
Lab blog and news for agroecosystems…

Publication highlight: Research suggests invasive fruit fly not a problem for grape growers
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Talking Science: 2017 conferences thus far
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New lab paper: “A Landscape View of Agricultural Insecticide Use across the Conterminous US from 1997 through 2012”
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Wild about Bees: Kiley Friedrich on Native Pollinators & Their Interactions with Plant Communities
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New Publication: When biocontrol doesn’t work
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Bat Week Highlights with Amy Wray
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Welcome to our newest lab member, Tracy!
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Pollinator Management for Apple Growers
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Field Season 2016 is underway!
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Hiring field assistants for spring/summer 2016!
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