Short project description

Flower-visiting insects provide pollination services for both insect-pollinated crops and wild plants. However, agricultural intensification has led to significant declines in floral resources (and nesting sites) in agricultural landscapes.

Floral resources are found in both cropped and non-cropped areas, and pollinators rely on multiple habitats within their flight range to meet their food requirements. Measuring floral availability at a landscape scale is needed for assessing habitat quality and guiding biodiversity-friendly farm management. However, quantifying floral resources across large areas remains a major challenge.

This MSc project aims to develop and test a novel method for quantifying floral resources at the landscape level using drone imaging, AI-based image analysis, and ground truthing. This study will include fieldwork to collect drone imagery, application of image analysis techniques to identify and quantify floral resources, and validate results by field observations.