Model output data from: Solar farms as potential future refuges for bumblebees
Data files
Oct 11, 2025 version files 1.49 MB
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Model_output_data.xlsx
1.48 MB
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README.md
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Abstract
Solar farms offer an opportunity for habitat creation for wildlife, including insect pollinators, potentially simultaneously contributing to both low-carbon energy and nature recovery. However, it is unknown whether co-benefits would persist under future land use change given that habitat value is context dependent. For the 1,042 operational solar farms in Great Britain, we predict their ability to support bumblebee populations (both inside and outside the solar farm) under three different socio-economic futures. These futures represent alternative 1 km scale landcover projections for the year 2050 with accompanying narratives. We downscale these to 10 m resolution, spatially allocating crop rotations, agri-environment interventions, and other habitat features consistent with the scenario narratives, to realistically represent fine-scale landscape elements of relevance to bumblebee populations. We then input these detailed maps into a sophisticated process-based model (poll4pop) that simulates bumblebee foraging and population dynamics, enabling us to predict bumblebee density in and around Great Britain’s solar farms, accounting for the effects of their changed habitat context and configuration in these different future scenarios. This dataset contains raw poll4pop model outputs, including the number of bumblebee nests, foraging bumblebees and new bumblebee queens inside each solar farm, surrounding foraging zone (0-500 m from the solar farm boundary) and wider landscape (10 km).
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9h5g
Description of the data and file structure
This dataset contains raw poll4pop model output data, including the number of predicted bumblebee nests, foraging bumblebees and new bumblebee queens inside each solar farm in Great Britain, surrounding foraging zone (0-500 m from the solar farm boundary) and wider landscape (10 km) under four land use change scenarios (present day, SSP1, SSP2 and SSP5) and three solar farm management scenarios (baseline, turf grass and meadow margins).
Files and variables
Below, details about each column in the Excel spreadsheet are provided:
land_use_scenario - the land use scenario under which the model was run, including the present day and three future land use scenarios for 2050 based on the UK-RCP-SSPs, where SSP1 represents Sustainability, SSP2 represents Middle of the Road and SSP5 represents Fossil-fuelled Development.
solar_farm_ID - a unique number attributed to each solar farm.
solar_farm_management_scenario - the solar farm management scenario under which the model was run, including baseline (no bumblebee resources), turf grass (vegetation across the whole site is equivalent to improved grassland i.e. higher productivity grassland used for agriculture) and meadow margins (edges of the solar farms are equivalent to unimproved grassland i.e. lower productivity semi-natural grassland which provide more bumblebee resources).
solar_farm_npix - the number of pixels inside the solar farm when rasterised.
buffer0to500_npix - the number of pixels inside the 500 m buffer zone surrounding the solar farm when rasterised.
n_nests_landscape - predicted number of bumblebee nests in the 10 km solar farm landscape.
n_nests_solar_farm - predicted number of bumblebee nests in the solar farm.
n_nests_buffer0to500 - predicted number of bumblebee nests inside the 500 m buffer zone surrounding the solar farm.
n_foragingbees_landscape - predicted number of foraging bumblebees in the 10 km solar farm landscape.
n_foragingbees_solar_farm - predicted number of foraging bumblebees in the solar farm.
n_foragingbees_buffer0to500 - predicted number of foraging bumblebees inside the 500 m buffer zone surrounding the solar farm.
n_newqueens_landscape - predicted number of new bumblebee queens in the 10 km solar farm landscape.
n_newqueens_solar_farm - predicted number of new bumblebee queens in the solar farm.
n_newqueens_buffer0to500 - predicted number of new bumblebee queens inside the 500 m buffer zone surrounding the solar farm.
n_floralresources_landscape - predicted amount of floral resources in the 10 km solar farm landscape.
n_nestingresources_landscape - predicted amount of nesting resources in the 10 km solar farm landscape.
n_floralresources_buffer0to500 - predicted amount of floral resources inside the 500 m buffer zone surrounding the solar farm.
n_nestingresources_buffer0to500 - predicted amount of nesting resources inside the 500 m buffer zone surrounding the solar farm.
For more information please contact Hollie Blaydes: h.blaydes@lancaster.ac.uk