Villages: An underestimated habitat with potential for pollinators

When it comes to research on habitats for pollinating insects, villages have so far received relatively little attention. The project Summende Dörfer (Buzzing Villages), based at the Chair of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology (Zoology III) at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU), aims to change that. In the Würzburg region and the Rhön, researchers examined a total of 40 villages to investigate which habitats within village environments are particularly insect-friendly and species-rich—and where improvements could be made. The results have now been published in the journal Ecological Applications.