Elissa Olimpi

I am broadly interested in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. By integrating conservation and agriculture, agroecosystems can provide wildlife habitat and protect ecosystem services, which can reduce the social and environmental costs associated with common agricultural inputs. For my dissertation research, I would like to explore trophic interactions between bats and their insect prey as an example of biological control. Specifically, I am interested in how on-farm management decisions and the surrounding landscape influence bat community assemblage and activity. During the summer of 2012, I used acoustic monitoring devices to passively monitor bats on vegetable farms in California's Central Coast. I work with both conventional and organic growers to understand how on-farm management practices interact with landscape heterogeneity to impact bats. I intend to set up on-farm manipulative experiments and to employ fecal DNA analysis to understand bat diets. Hopefully, my research will elucidate the extent to which bats may provide a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to pesticides through specific management strategies.

Because my research will have an applied component, I am interested in how decisions regarding farming practices are influenced by social, cultural, and economic factors. Drawing upon a political ecology framework, I will explore political barriers to sustainable agriculture and conflicts between conservation and agricultural production. This work is especially relevant to California, where agriculture is an important industry and accounts for a significant portion of land use.