Gaines, H.R. and C. Gratton
Presented at the All Scientist and GLBRC Sustainability Meeting (2009-05-05 to 2009-05-07 )
As the demand for biofuel increases, the area of land devoted to biofuel cropping systems will expand. This change in land cover will influence the diversity of beneficial insects and the services they provide including pollination and pest suppression. In order to address this question, Thrust 4.4 is investigating how these variables vary as a function of landscape in three cropping systems, switchgrass, corn, and diverse prairie. The first step in this analysis is to identify patterns of landscape heterogeneity in our study region. This poster describes the analytical process by which we analyzed Wisconsin and Michigan land-cover data to identify these patterns. Our sampling locations for 2009 were selected so as to sample across multiple landscape gradients representative of the agricultural landscapes in which bio-energy crops will be grown.
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