Our network: people, groups, and projects
Please note, we are still the early stages of our project and will be regularly updating our directory of members in the coming months
Alaska
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Casey Burns, Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
The Bureau of Land Management manages more pollinator habitat than any entity in the United States, including some of the most species-rich habitats in the country. BLM has pollinator coordinators in every BLM state office that work to collaboratively address issues and take advantage of opportunities. Additionally, through the Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring (AIM) Pollinator Supplementary Indicator, BLM assesses plant phenology and pollinator visitation. |
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Jessica Rykken, Entomologist, Denali National Park and Preserve
Conducts pollinator (bees and syrphid fly) surveys in Denali and other National Parks throughout Alaska, as well as more structured studies on pollinator distributions along elevational gradients, and phenology in relation to host plants. |
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Arkansas
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Leslie Cooper, Arkansas Monarch Conservation Partnership/ Quail Forever
Leslie is the Arkansas Monarch and Pollinator Coordinator and coordinates for the Arkansas Monarch Conservation Partnership (AMCP). The AMCP has a statewide pollinator conservation plan that includes native bee research and monitoring. The AMCP is interested in engaging native bee researchers and scientists in the state to unify efforts to accomplish goals in the Arkansas Monarch and Pollinator Conservation Plan. |
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California
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Claudineia Pereira Costa, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California, Riverside
Claudinéia earned her Ph.D. from the University of São Paulo in Brazil; she is an expert in molecular biology and has worked with bees for > 10 years. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Woodard lab, where her research focuses on understanding how early development influences the quality of bumble bee workers and their pollination services. |
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Erica Sarro, PhD Candidate, University of California, Riverside
Erica is a PhD candidate in the Woodard Lab at the University of California, Riverside, where she researches the behavior and physiology of bumble bee queens. With her research, she aims to inform conservation strategies by improving our understanding of how queens respond to environmental stressors early in the season and the factors that limit early season nesting success. She has five years of experience in outreach and education and will be co-leading the creation of public-facing documentation for the RCN to promote community involvement in native bee monitoring and conservation. |
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Katja C. Seltmann, University of California Santa Barbara, Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (CCBER)
Katja’s research is on California native bees, natural history collection digitization, and biodiversity data science. The research center (CCBER) has several native bee conservation projects, including local inventories and the inclusion of insects in coastal restoration planning and management. Her research is at the intersection of computer science and biodiversity, with a focus on biodiversity data management, digitization, and sharing of data about bees and other arthropods. |
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Hollis Woodard, Assistant Professor of Entomology, University of California, Riverside
Hollis is the lead PI of the National Native Bee Monitoring RCN. Her lab at UC Riverside works on bumble biology and conservation. Current projects include the conservation genomics of threatened bumble bees of Southern California and an ongoing examination of the status of bumble bees across the state. |
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Colorado
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The Native Bee Watch Community Science
The Native Bee Watch Community Science program trains and engages volunteers in Colorado to identify bees visiting flowers at home and public gardens. Research goals include: 1) learning about bee diversity and abundance in local areas, 2) making plant recommendations to homeowners and municipal planners, 3) educating volunteers and their communities, and 4) assessing adult learning in community science. For more information, contact Lisa Mason (Horticulture Agent, Colorado State University Extension in Centennial, CO; email link) and Arathi Seshadri (Research Entomologist USDA /ARS/WRRC, Invasive Species and Pollinator Health Research Unit in Davis, CA). |
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Connecticut
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Kimberly Stoner, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
Kimberly's lab is working on a checklist of bees of Connecticut, led by Tracy Zarrillo. They also do research on pollination of pumpkins and squash, bee visitation to ornamental plants, and analyzing pesticides and plant sources in pollen collected by honey bees. They have also been very actively involved in creating pollinator habitat through our organic farming organization (CT NOFA) and a citizen-led movement, the Pollinator Pathway. |
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Tracy Zarrillo, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Department of Entomology
Tracy developed and manages a wild bee monitoring program which began in 2010 and continues into the present. Currently, she is writing a checklist of the wild bees of Connecticut. Past work includes a survey of the bee fauna of an Atlantic coastal plain tidal marsh community in Southern New England, and an annotated list of new and noteworthy bees for Connecticut. |
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Florida
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Rachel Mallinger, University of Florida
The Mallinger lab conducts research in pollination ecology to better understand the factors that mediate plant-pollinator interactions, structure pollinator communities, and determine plant pollination rates. Projects include: 1. Enhancing our understanding of pollinator ecology, behavior, and life history with a focus on native, wild bees, 2. Investigating the effects of disturbances and conservation efforts on pollinator communities, 3. Elucidating floral traits that drive pollinator attraction and pollination services, and 4. Determining pollination requirements, degrees of pollen limitation, and mating systems across different crop and wild plant species. |
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Illinois
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Meredith L. Holm, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Great Lakes Region
Supported by the EPA, the FWS is leading a collaborative effort with the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Natural Resources Conservation Service and others (states, universities, etc.) to conserve native insect pollinators throughout the Great Lakes Basin. Meri serves as the coordinator of this effort. The GLRI Pollinator Task Force was formed and a Pollinator Conservation Strategy developed in 2019. The goals of the Strategy are to conserve native insect pollinators by reversing population declines, restoring habitat and increasing public awareness of pollinator conservation and efforts. The initial focus is on native bees and they are working with a diversity of researchers and institutions in the Basin on projects to inform conservation of native bees. |
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Kansas
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Anthony Zukoff, Kansas State University, Southwest Research and Extension
Anthony is interested in wild bee communities in and around agricultural land. Native bees in western Kansas as a region have been very inadequately sampled. Anthony is also interested in Kansas Bumble Bee populations and is currently conducting a statewide survey for the Kansas Department of Parks Wildlife and Tourism. |
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Caleb Sowers, Kansas State University
Caleb works on “BeeMachine”, an automated bee identification tool developed in the hopes of relieving field's taxonomic bottleneck. Also, he is working on field applications of this technology, with an eye towards developing an automated pollinator monitoring system. |
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Maine
Maryland
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Donald J Harvey, Volunteer at the Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History & Sam Droege’s Lab
After taking The Bee Course at SWRS in 2015, native bees have been Don's primary focus (he converted from Lepidoptera). His major interests are host relations of oligolectic bees in MD, searching for rare bees, and gardening for native bees. |
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Sam Droege, U.S. Geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research
The joint USGS/FWS National Bee Laboratory provides national and international support to those who survey and identify bees. They develop identification guides, train workers, inventory and monitor bees on public and private landscapes, work on evaluations of bee survey methodology, manage a half million specimen database, and provide high-resolution photographs of bee specimens. |
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Michigan
Minnesota
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Heather Holm, Pollinator Conservationist & Biologist
Heather is the author of three books (Pollinators of Native Plants, Bees, and Wasps) that illustrate the natural history and biology of native bees and aculeate wasps, and pollinator - native plant relationships in the Upper Midwest and Northeast. She also assists with Minnesota bumble bee surveys. |
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Jessica Petersen, Invertebrate Ecologist, Division of Ecological and Water Resources
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has been conducting statewide bee surveys since 2014 using a variety of sampling methodologies. We are eager to begin monitoring bees following completion of the statewide survey in the next few years. |
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New Mexico
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Melanie Kazenel, Ph.D. Candidate, University of New Mexico
Melanie studies the ecology of native bee communities and plant-pollinator interactions, particularly in the context of climate change. She currently uses long-term bee monitoring data from the Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research Program (New Mexico, USA) to examine bee abundance and diversity trends over time, determines whether climate drives these trends, and elucidates which traits govern bee responses to climate change. |
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North Carolina
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Hannah Levenson, PhD candidate, North Carolina State University
Hannah is a CEFS fellow conducting a multi-year survey of the native bee populations across the state of North Carolina, with the main goal of assessing how the addition of planted pollinator habitat in agricultural landscapes affects these populations over time. As part of the same study, she is also evaluating the impact of the habitat bee health as well as nearby cropping systems. |
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Ohio
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James Strange, Professor of Entomology, The Ohio State University
Jamie is a co-organizer of the RCN. Work in his lab broadly focuses on aspects of bumble bee health, genetics, and conservation. Previous work has focused on bumble bee survey and monitoring and illuminating underlying causes of population changes. Current research projects are focused on understanding how landscape impacts bumble bee communities and their interactions with parasites and pathogens. |
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Oregon
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Andony Melathopoulos, Assistant Professor in Pollinator Health Extension, Oregon Bee Atlas, Master Melittologist Program, Oregon State University
The Oregon Bee Atlas trains and equips volunteer Master Melittologists to: a) create and maintain a comprehensive and publicly accessible inventory of the state’s native bees and their plant-host preferences, b) to educate Oregonians on the state’s bee biodiversity and c) to conduct an on-going survey of native bee populations in order to assess their health. Andony is a member of the RCN's Community Science and Extension Committee. |
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Lauren Ponisio, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Oregon
The Ponisio lab studies the effects of shifting fire patterns on bee communities, restoring wild bees in agriculture, and understanding what shapes the resilience/function of plant-pollinator interaction networks. They work on bees the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest. |
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Charles Schelz, Ecologist, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument
Charles and his team are working closely with the Oregon Bee Atlas and Oregon State University to collect and identify native bees of Oregon. They are developing a monitoring plan for bee populations in the monument, which was set aside primarily to protect its unique biodiversity. They are including bee and pollinator plants in all restoration projects to create effective native pollinator gardens. In addition to working in Oregon, they also work in Northern California. |
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Stefanie Steele, MS student, Portland State University Biology
Stefanie's research investigates the natural history of the bees of Portland, OR. A three year survey was done to determine what bee species are found within the urban core of the city and what floral resources they are using. An additional study focused on cavity nesting bees over one year to determine what bee (and wasp) species would use artificial nest blocks. The project also garnered natural history information about nesting preferences and descriptions of nest structure and associated parasitoids. |
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Pennsylvania
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Christina Grozinger, Department of Entomology, Center for Pollinator Research, Insect Biodiversity Center, Penn State
The Grozinger lab uses an integrative approach, from genomics to ecology, to study the social behavior and health of managed and wild bees. Current research efforts include developing models and decision support tools to predict bee abundance, diversity and health in response to local landscape and environmental conditions. |
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Margarita López-Uribe, Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, Pennsylvania State
The López-Uribe lab is interested in understanding how environmental change and life-history traits affect demography, health, and long-term persistence of bee pollinator populations. They recently completed an updated checklist of the bees of Pennsylvania and are currently developing a project with Master Gardeners to begin monitoring bee populations across the state. |
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South Dakota
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Karl Roeder, USDA-ARS, Integrated Cropping Systems Research
Karl studied insects in agroecosystems, deserts, forests, prairies, and urban environments. He has a particular fondness for biodiversity (especially Hymenoptera) and his research focuses on understanding how abiotic conditions and biotic interactions govern change in invertebrate communities. |
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Texas
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Elinor Lichtenberg, University of North Texas
The Lichtenberg lab combines ecology and animal behavior to study how land use change and land management practices affect pollinator biodiversity, foraging, and pollination. They study diverse insect pollinators, including bees, beetles and flies. Currently they are investigating impacts of grazing practices on plant and pollinator communities. |
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Shalene Jha, Professor of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin
The Jha Lab investigates ecological and evolutionary processes from genes to landscapes in order to quantify global change impacts on plant-animal interactions, movement ecology, and the provisioning of ecosystem services. Specifically, their work strives to provide insight into the drivers of pollinator diversity, the complex and dynamic nature of wild pollinator foraging, and critical drivers of population genetic/g structure over space and time. In addition to their work in Texas, they also work in California, Mexico, and Panama. |
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Washington
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Russel Barsh, KWIAHT: Center for the Historical Ecology of the Salish Sea
Russel is broadly a human ecologist interested in the changing ways that people manipulate landscapes and ecosystems, and how other species adapt to us. Research interests include the effects of pre- and post-contact farming systems on the pollinator communities of the San Juan Islands; the effects of habitat-restoration practices such as prescribed burning; changing weather patterns; and introductions of non-native bees. |
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West Virginia
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Mark J. Hepner, Metamorphic Ecological Research and Consulting, LLC
Mark is working on a list of native bees of West Virginia. He has conducted field surveys in all 55 West Virginia counties and successfully located several rare species, including the Endangered rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis). He is a US Fish and Wildlife Service Bombus affinis Recovery Permit holder, focusing his efforts on finding new locations and the collection of non-lethal DNA, pollen, and pathogen samples. |
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Kim Lippke, Crown Bees
Kim manages the Native Bee Network, a citizen science project to learn more about the hole-nesting solitary bee species of North America. Specifically, the goal is to understand the diversity and distribution of different species, as well as the nesting preferences of those species. At the completion of this project, they hope to have a well-grounded group of native bee citizen scientists and to have identified new and potentially manageable species for increased pollination and crop production. |
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Lora Morandin, Pollinator Partnership
Pollinator Partnership is a non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California that works to protect the health of pollinating animals that are vital to wildland and agricultural ecosystems through research, education and outreach, habitat creation, policy advising, and collaboration. |
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Deborah Paul, Species File Group, Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
Deborah is part of the software development team of the Biodiversity Informatics Community Liaison for the Species File Group at the INHS. Her work centers around connecting collections and taxonomic projects, people, and communities worldwide given that our experts and the accompanying knowledge of the planet’s bio and geo diversity are distributed all over the globe. Currently, she is Deputy Chair of the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Organization with a mission to enhance bio and geo diversity standards development / implementation / and adoption in support of open data that is fair with people getting credit for their biocollections work. |
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Mace Vaughan, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
Mac oversees a team of 25 staff working on pollinator habitat conservation on the ground. He collaborates closely with USDA NRCS to provide technical support for programs and practices that support pollinators, which could benefit from an improved understanding of native bee monitoring and regional trends in native bee status. Also, he coordinates with Xerces Society endangered species program staff who implement Bumble Bee Watch, Bumble Bee Atlases, and other community science monitoring programs. |
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USDA-ARS-PWA Pollinating Insect-Biology, Systematics Research Unit
The USDA-ARS-PWA Pollinating Insect Research Unit is the home of the US National Pollinating Collection and associated database. Its mission is the development of non-Apis bees and enhancement of the role of native species in the pollination of annual, perennial, greenhouse, and nursery crops while maintaining environmental quality. The primary goals are to quantify pollinator populations over time, investigate factors impacting pollinators, improve pollinator availability, and to understand better how bee population size and density affect crop pollination. Critical to this mission is determining how pathogens and parasites, pesticides, and floral resource diversity and availability affect all pollinators. |
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International
Australia
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Kit Prendergast, The Jarrah Forest, Department of Biology, Conservation & Attractions
Kit researches native bee ecology, diversity, and behavior. Her PhD thesis is on the ecology of bees in urban areas involved in investigating habitat and floral associations of native bees in urban areas, plant-pollination networks, bee hotel use, the impact of the introduced European honeybee on native bees, and pollination networks. She is also involved in science communication and public outreach and barcodes all Australian bee species. She is currently conducting native bee surveys in nature reserves to discover the native fauna, phenology, and host associations. |
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