Non Technical Summary
In late September 2024, Hurricane Helene caused billions of dollars in damage to communities in Western North Carolina (NC). In addition to tragic loss of human life and massive damage to infrastructure, whole landscapes were subject to destruction not seen in the region in modern history. The damage to agricultural crops has yet to be assessed, and even less is understood about the damage to pollinator communities that support these agricultural areas. To support agriculture, growers, and the broader community in the wake of this environmental catastrophe, we will enhance the recovery of agriculture in Western NC through the restoration of pollinator habitat. We first propose extension and education materials and presentations explaining the benefits of and guidelines for installing pollinator habitat. Second, we will provide an in-depth workshop on the installation and maintenance of crop-adjacent pollinator habitat to western growers; we will further support these growers by providing seed and soil testing, free of charge to workshop registrants. Finally, we will conduct yearlong regional surveys of pollinator communities at planted habitat to assess their recovery and support future conservation efforts.

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
807	2410	1070	90%
136	0850	1070	10%

Knowledge Area
807 - Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery; 136 - Conservation of Biological Diversity;

Subject Of Investigation
0850 - Wildlife habitats; 2410 - Cross-commodity research--multiple crops;

Field Of Science
1070 - Ecology;

Goals / Objectives
The goals of this project are to support agriculture, growers, and the broader community in the wake of theenvironmental catastrophe of Hurricane Helene. We will do this with an integrated project that willenhance the recovery of agriculture in Western NC throughthe restoration of pollinator habitat. Objecitve 1 involvescreating extension and education materials and presentations to build a population of community members that are educated on the benefits of and guidelines for installing pollinator habitat. Objective 2 involves specifically targeting western growers through an in-depth workshop on the installation and maintenance of crop-adjacent pollinator habitat; we will further support these growers by providing seed and soil testing, free of charge to workshop registrants, to maximize the initial returns on effort and land parceling. In Objective 3 we will conduct yearlong regional surveys of pollinator communities at planted habitat to assess their recovery, model ecosystem requirements post-flooding, and support future recovery efforts.

Project Methods
Objective 1: Deliver educational programming about habitat resotration for agricultureEfforts: We will generate print and audiovisual educational materials which we will then distribute to the public. These materials will be generated following the knowledge obtained by a current-funded SARE On-Farm Research project (OS24-171); we will expand the knowledge generated under this project with our advisory board to apply to a wide audience and to be used during outreach-appropriate deliverables. We will develop and print a tri-fold pamphlet containing information about constructing pollinator habitat. This will be paired with identification guides to allow the public to readily assess the biodiversity in their habitats. These materials will also be adapted into presentations for direct delivery in training and outreach events at NC Cooperative Extension Offices throughout the region. These materials will also be shared with county agents who will continue this effort after the proposal term. Audiovisual material, includingvideos and web media, will be hosted on the NC State Extension Pollintors website, as well as delivered through social media and listservs.Evaluation: We will evaluate the impact of these efforts through in-person audience counts, web-hits on online media, and the number of requests for follow-up presentations or information from the community and county agents.Objective 2: Provide seeds to Western North Carolina growersEfforts: We will host a local, region-specific workshop at one of the mountain research stations. At this workshop we will present the benefits of adding habitat into agriculture, including a more detailed and instructional version of the outreach materials generated under Objective 1. We will provide seed mix from a commercial provider to participants, free of charge to registrants, to help defray the costs of setting up augmented habitat and ease recovery burdens. We will also invite participants to collect a soil sample from the planned planting area and we will liaise with a soil testing service, free of charge to registrants, to ensure that the area is suitable for pollinator habitat recovery.Evaluation:The PIs will follow-up by phone and email with participants to incentivize construction of the plots, to advise on comparisons between crops with and without augmented habitat, and finally to survey growers at the end of the season to assess whether they perceived any benefit from the program and the likelihood of reimplementation in subsequent years.Objective 3: Assess the pollinator communities post-flooding eventEfforts: We will collect samples of bees from the planted pollinator habitat at 8 research stations once a month for four months during peak bloom, June through September. At each sampling event, 2 - 3 collectors will usetimed hand netting for 1 hour. Each collected bee will be placed in an individual collection tube, transported back to the university on ice, and stored in the freezer until identified. Once identified, bee species will be categorized by functional traitto evaluate if groups of species are disproportionately impacted by extreme flooding.Evaluation: Data will be analyzed using current ecological statistical practices. In brief, species-level abundance and diversity will be calculated for each site in reference to the time of year and flooding intensity, with a mixed-effect linear model used to determine the significant impact of each. We will then calculate non-metric distances among different communities and assess the impact of flooding, site, and time of year on community structure. At the genus level, we will additionally assess functional trait differences in pollinator communities by assessing the variation in abundance among genera with differing life-history traits, active period, forage specificity, and social structure. The core hypothesis is that some functional traits will be more affected by extreme flooding compared to others.