Maintaining an essential habitat: What’s good for pollinators is good for utility companies too
Frequent mowing under power lines offers more habitat for pollinators. (Chase Kimmel)
Electric power companies dedicate significant resources to clearing overgrown plants and debris from the area surrounding power lines. These areas are known as electric rights-of-way, and anything that obstructs access to them can threaten power outages, hinder public safety and make it harder for utility crews to perform necessary maintenance and repairs.
A new paper shows that appropriate vegetation management is beneficial not only to utility companies but to pollinating insects as well. In the largest scale study of its kind, covering the greatest number of sites and species, researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History surveyed 18 rights-of-way managed by Duke Energy. They found that sites being maintained on schedule, which kept woody vegetation to a minimum, had a greater quantity and diversity of flowering plants and pollinating insects.
“It’s a win-win,” said Chase Kimmel, insect conservation biologist at the museum and first author of the study. “It’s exciting that the goals of promoting pollinator habitats are in line with how Duke Energy would like to manage that land.”