Pollination Study

Dr. Diana Robson, a curator for Botany at the Manitoba Museum, is studying pollination at the Living Prairie Museum. Every two weeks, she visits the tall grass prairie to study the relationships that develop between insects and plants in six 5m x 5m “plots”, recording the number of insect species, counting flowering stems, as well as the percentage of plant cover. In addition to her work at the Living Prairie Museum, she is comparing insect diversity data with the Tall Grass Prairie preserve in Tolstoi, Manitoba. Dr. Robson's motivation for the pollination study stems from a strong belief in the scientific community that different habitat sizes and varying levels of isolation affect the diversity of insects. The Living Prairie Museum could potentially be limited in diversity due to its smaller scale and shared boundary with the surrounding developed area. The objective of Dr. Robson's research is to tabulate and make recommendations to prevent further loss in species diversity.

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