Ongoing research

Descriptions of recent and ongoing research

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Pollination of wild and cultivated plants is increasingly threatened by climate change and other anthropogenic disturbances, but pollination is also highly dynamic, and understanding what drives this variability may help guide more effective interventions. Current research projects include collaborative meta-analyses quantifying pollinator contributions to global agriculture and exploring how plant-pollinator trait-matching affects pollination effectiveness, surveys of how pollinator community composition varies across European crops, and greenhouse experiments testing how floral damage, nectar removal, and different pollination treatments interact to affect Vicia faba reproduction.

Plants are essential sources of pollinator nutrition, but petals, nectar, leaves, and other plant tissues can also be sites for the transmission of parasites, viruses, and other pathogens. Recent and ongoing research projects include assessing the temporal dynamics of Deformed Wing Virus transmission in plant-pollinator interaction networks and using inoculation assays and pathogen screens to understand which species can be infected by Crithidia bombi.

Exploitative competition between honey bees and native bees could have negative consequences for native bee populations, but we know surprisingly little about when and where negative effects are likely to occur. Recent and ongoing projects include manipulative cage experiments and field surveys designed to assess when, where, and how honey bee competition impacts native bee fitness.