Category
Textual or Investigative
Description
The Liberty University natural history collection contains a substantial number of preserved insect specimens taken from all over the state of Virginia, and which includes many families of pollinator insects. Pollinator insects play an important part in life on this planet, so the purpose of this study was to visually represent and evaluate historical pollinator habitat data. Information such as this can be used to both spread awareness of pollinator conservation and to provide a better understanding of where pollinators may be located. In this study, we compiled and examined location data from ten families of Virginia native pollinator insects to determine what kinds of locations these specimens were found in, and how this differs between families. This was done using GIS mapping to create ten distribution heatmaps of each individual pollinator family. We found that the majority of specimens from all ten families combined were taken from parks and natural areas. This was also true for specimens from eight out of the ten families when individual families were examined. From this we concluded that native pollinator specimens in LU’s collection were taken primarily from parks and natural areas in Lynchburg, Virginia, and from around LU’s campus.
Distribution of Virginia Pollinator Insect Specimens from the Liberty University Natural History Collection
Textual or Investigative
The Liberty University natural history collection contains a substantial number of preserved insect specimens taken from all over the state of Virginia, and which includes many families of pollinator insects. Pollinator insects play an important part in life on this planet, so the purpose of this study was to visually represent and evaluate historical pollinator habitat data. Information such as this can be used to both spread awareness of pollinator conservation and to provide a better understanding of where pollinators may be located. In this study, we compiled and examined location data from ten families of Virginia native pollinator insects to determine what kinds of locations these specimens were found in, and how this differs between families. This was done using GIS mapping to create ten distribution heatmaps of each individual pollinator family. We found that the majority of specimens from all ten families combined were taken from parks and natural areas. This was also true for specimens from eight out of the ten families when individual families were examined. From this we concluded that native pollinator specimens in LU’s collection were taken primarily from parks and natural areas in Lynchburg, Virginia, and from around LU’s campus.
