Can solar farms become future refuges for bumblebees?
Solar farms could become important refuges for bumblebees in Britain, a new study reveals - though their benefits only go so far.
Lancaster University
image:
A bumblebee on a solar farm in the UK
view moreCredit: Dr Hollie Blaydes
Solar farms could become important refuges for bumblebees in Britain, a new study reveals - though their benefits only go so far.
In the first study to investigate the role of solar farms in future biodiversity conservation, a research team, from Lancaster University, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the University of Reading, set out to discover if the UK’s existing solar farms could support bumblebees in the face of a changing countryside.
They found that solar farm management – wildflower margins verses turf - was the main factor influencing the number of bumblebees within solar farms themselves.
Their new modelling suggests bumblebee numbers within solar farms could more than double (increase by 120%) if solar farms are managed for biodiversity, with wildflower margins providing a rich source of food for the bees. This increase is when compared to solar farms just covered with turf grass.
“Our results indicate that well-managed solar farms could provide refuges to help protect localised bumblebee populations against landscape changes happening beyond the site boundaries,” said Dr Hollie Blaydes, Senior Research Associate at Lancaster University. “We expected to find that solar farms with more resources would support more bees, but we were also interested in how this management interacts with wider land use changes.”
The researchers applied a novel high-resolution modelling technique to predict how Britain’s existing 1,042 solar farms may play a role in supporting bumblebee numbers in the coming decades.
They used and investigated three previously established future visions (based on the Representative Concentration Pathways and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways) of what landscapes in Britain could look like based on ‘sustainable’, ‘middle-of-the-road’ and ‘fossil-fuelled development’ socio-economic scenarios, downscaled from 1km to a highly detailed 10m square resolution.
Across these scenarios, the amount of different habitats in a landscape varies, as does management of these habitats, with consequences for bumblebee foraging and nesting opportunities. All futures see a decrease in agricultural land area surrounding solar farms compared to the present day, driven by factors ranging from changing diets to increased urbanisation.
Dr Blaydes said: “We took existing land use futures maps and downscaled them to a resolution that is more relevant to bumblebees. Then, we added features, such as hedgerows and wildflower patches, which are important landscape elements for bumblebees and combined the maps with a pollinator model. The model predicts how bees use these landscapes based on foraging and nesting resources. This aspect of the work was particularly novel - it is unusual for modelling like this to be done in such detail.”
Their results suggest the bee-boosting effects of the management of solar farms are largely constrained to the solar farms themselves – and have a limited and localised impact across a large wider landscape.
Landscape composition around solar farms were found to have a greater influence on bumblebee densities in the foraging areas surrounding solar farms.
Modelling for a ‘sustainable’ future scenario where more bumblebee food resources and habitat are put back into the landscape would have the most positive impact on bumblebee densities across a wider landscape and including foraging zones around existing solar farms.
Alona Armstrong, Professor in Energy and Environmental Sciences and co-author of the study, said: “While benefits from solar farms for bumblebee densities may be limited to the local scale, our findings help to show that site management plays a role in supporting bumblebee populations. Solar farms could be considered as an emerging tool in conservation to help protect populations of bumblebees into the future.
“If we are going to need additional solar farms to meet our national renewable energy commitments, then strategic siting of solar farms could be considered to connect bumblebee habitats or provide bumblebee resources where they are otherwise limited.”
Dr Blaydes said: “Solar farms can be refuges for bumblebees in the present day and in the future and could play a part in mitigating habitat loss – if managed well. But, solar farms alone will not be able to counteract the effects of all future land use changes on bumblebees and other biodiversity.”
The results of the study, which was funded through researcher grants by the Natural Environment Research Council with support from Low Carbon, are detailed in the paper ‘solar farms as potential future refuges for bumblebees’ which has been published by the journal Global Change Biology’.
Authors of the study include Hollie Blaydes, Duncan Whyatt and Alona Armstrong of Lancaster University; Emma Gardner, Robert Dunford-Brown and John Redhead of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology; and Simon Potts of the University of Reading.
Journal
Global Change Biology
Method of Research
Computational simulation/modeling
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Solar farms as potential future refuges for bumblebees
Article Publication Date
8-Oct-2025
Burning issue: study finds fire a friend to some bees, a foe to others
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Bees species the Megachile aufrions.
view moreCredit: Kit Prendergast
New Curtin University research has found the impact of bushfires and prescribed burns on global bee populations is highly varied, with some species benefiting from fire while others face severe risks.
The study, led by Adjunct Research Fellow Dr Kit Prendergast from Curtin’s School of Molecular and Life Sciences, examined 148 studies from around the world to understand how fire impacts bees.
The review considered the severity, frequency and duration of fires, along with the different characteristics of bees, such as where they nest, their body size, how specialised their diet is and whether they live alone or in groups.
Dr Prendergast said while declining pollinator numbers are being increasingly recognised as a major threat to biodiversity and sustainability, little was known until now about how they respond to fires that are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change and land management practices.
“We found that ground-nesting bees and those that feed on many different plants often flourished in the open, sunny conditions that follow a fire. But bees that nest in little pre-made holes in trees or those that rely on just a few plant species for food were far more vulnerable, as fires can destroy their nesting sites and the plants they depend on,” Dr Prendergast said.
“Overall, our findings show that bee responses to fire are highly varied, with some species benefiting, while others decline or disappear altogether.
“The review highlighted significant research gaps, with most existing studies coming from North America and Europe, rather than fire-prone Southern Hemisphere ecosystems.
“Despite Australia being home to a rich diversity of native bees and some of the world’s most fire-affected landscapes, there is a lack of research into how our unique native bees cope with fire.”
Study co-author Associate Professor Bill Bateman, also from Curtin’s School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said the findings underscored the importance of tailoring fire management to support biodiversity.
“This review shows there is no one-size-fits-all approach, with fire proving to be beneficial for some bees and catastrophic for others,” Associate Professor Bateman said.
“To preserve bee diversity, land managers need to think beyond hazard reduction and consider strategies such as leaving unburnt refuges, maintaining habitat connectivity and using a mosaic of burn types across the landscape.
“This is especially important in Australia, where our ecosystems and bees have evolved under very different fire regimes compared to the Northern Hemisphere.”
The study recommended that fire management plans incorporate measures to support native bee survival and recovery, given their vital role in pollination, food security and ecosystem health.
The full study ‘Bees feeling the burn: how fire affects global bee biodiversity’ is published in ‘Biological Reviews’ and can be accessed here: doi: 10.1111/brv.70082
Journal
Biological Reviews
Method of Research
Literature review
Subject of Research
Animals
Article Title
Bees feeling the burn: how fire affects global bee biodiversity
Article Publication Date
8-Oct-2025
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