LandscapeWebinars.org hosted Kim Chacon, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo educator, for a live and OnDemand webinar on December 5th to discover the importance of pollinators, sustainable design practices and Chacon's own data on GIS analytics surrounding bees.

This session, "Strategic Pollinator GIS Habitat Analysis and Landscape Design," began with the history of bees and how important pollinators are to food supply. She went on to explain how while many believe that bees are in decline which she explained that Colony Collapse Disorder can be pointed to as the culprit.

Chacon gave detailed examples of various species of bees, how they nest, and their preferred flowers based on her own study in San Luis Obispo. She dove into examples of solutions to incorporate native and preferred plantings even with typology for basic city situations.

 
In conclusion, she showed how GIS can be utilized to best tackle pollinator designs in an effective way. The course featured a robust Q & A session that is the benchmark for live courses.

The OnDemand course can be purchased here: https://landscapewebinars.org/landscape-webinars/webinar/strategic-pollinator-gis-habitat-analysis-and-landscape-design

Webinar Description:
Since 2009, I have been fascinated with how be the best landscape designer for pollinators, especially bees. My curiosity led me to research building resilient bee landscapes. As it turns out "saving the bees" is not simple. There are thousands of different types of bees, hardly a homogeneous group. Moreover, though landscape fragmentation is listed as a main threat to bees, the solutions are not clear cut.

Solving geographical bee habitat issues is essential to protect pollination ecosystem services. Throughout my PhD research, the University of California, Davis, I have identified where in time and space habitat occurs within pollination networks. I work the GIS software to determine and remedy habitat strategic improvements. As a designer I care deeply about how to improve the world's landscapes for pollinators.

Learning Objectives:
1. Learn about the importance of designing for pollinators.
2. Analyze landscapes for specific pollinators.
3. Design landscapes for specific pollinators.

Kim Chacon
Kim Chacon specializes in bee landscape habitat analysis and design. Kim finished her PhD and in Geography from UC Davis in 2021. Her thesis assessed patch dynamics and potential landscape fragmentation within the UC Davis Arboretum's themed gardens, where a combination of fieldwork and GIS mapping analysis showed the Arboretum's function as novel ecosystems to many of the California's native bees. Read more about Kim's research and work at beelandscapes.com. Since 2021, Kim has taught her own Landscape Architecture, Horticulture, and GIS courses at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and Merritt College in Oakland, California. She is passionate about opening her students' eyes to landscape design and landscape ecology. Kim is intrinsically interested in plants, bees, gardens often, and designs for pollinators all the time.