In early May I made the familiar drive east across Tennessee for a week of field work in and around the large Tennessee Valley Authority powerline corridors that cross the surface of the Cumberland Plateau. This work is part of a multi-year study looking at the value of these open rights-of-way to grassland biodiversity, specifically to plants and their insect pollinators.

The “Plants, Pollinators, and Powerlines” study we are conducting with our partners at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the Mississippi Entomological Museum, and the Electric Power Research Institute was revived in 2021 after being on hiatus in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. I’ve been busy the last month identifying specimens and analyzing botanical data from our 2021 field season.

The flat to gently rolling surface of the Cumberland Plateau has grasslands, yet they are hard to come by today. Once common and widespread, these formerly open pine and oak savannas, prairies, glades, and acidic open wetlands have largely disappeared, and with them many of the species they supported. For this reason, the Tennessee Valley Authority is working with SGI to support an inventory and assessment of Rights-of-Way (ROWs) in the Cumberland Plateau, and field work began May 2019.

The TN Department of Transportation awarded SGI to develop a plan to better conserve and manage the grassland and pollinator habitat found on Tennessee highway rights-of-way. A large part of the project involves finding and documenting the existing habitat along Tennessee’s highway corridors so that we can help TDOT prioritize areas in need or protection and restoration. Here’s the exciting report from our first surveys of the 2019 season.