Vacant Land as Bee Habitats with Mary Gardiner

A Growing Conservation Focus in Shrinking Cities: Vacant Land as Bee Habitat

October 26, 2021, 6:30 – 8:00 PM EDT | via ZOOM

October 26th, 6:30 PM

A Growing Conservation Focus in Shrinking Cities: Vacant Land as Bee Habitats

with Mary M. Gardiner

In this online presentation, Mary examines how the design, management, contamination legacy, and landscape context of urban greenspaces influence their conservation value for bee communities.

Speaker Details

Dr. Mary M. Gardiner received her Ph.D. in 2008 and is currently a Professor in the Department of Entomology at The Ohio State University and the Co-Director of the Environmental Science Graduate Program. Her research program focuses on the ecological value of urban vacant land. This work is concentrated in Cleveland, Ohio – a city that has experienced significant economic and population decline. Cleveland currently contains 27,000 vacant lots encompassing approximately 4,000 acres of land. The Gardiner Lab examines how alternative vegetation designs and management regimes influence the value of vacant land for the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services. Mary is also a State Specialist in Extension and works with several stakeholder groups including home gardeners, Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists, and urban farmers. Her extension programming focuses on identifying and attracting beneficial insects to gardens and farms to promote conservation and ecosystem services. In 2015, she released a book focused on natural enemies and their role in biological control in home gardens titled: Good Garden Bugs: Everything You Need to Know about Beneficial Predatory Insects. She has also embraced the use of community science in her research with the statewide program, Pollination Investigators, which engages volunteers in the study of pollination services.