Kalamazoo College

Heatwaves Are Frequent and Intense Across the United States. However, We Have a Limited Understanding of How Such Events Affect Bee Survival, Development, and Fitness. This Information Is Critical for Guiding Informed Management Decisions and Predicting Impacts to Populations and Pollination Services for Agriculture. My Project Will Quantify the Impacts of Heatwaves on an Important, Managed Crop Pollinator--the Blue Orchard Bee, Osmia Lignaria. I Will Investigate the Impacts of Heatwaves on Two Key Stages of Early Development Across Three Western Populations Used for Crop Pollination. I Combine Field and Laboratory Experiments to (1) Determine the Impacts of Heatwaves on Organismal Responses, Such as Development and Survival, and (2) Identify Molecular Mechanisms Associated With Heat Stress and Resilience. This Research Improves Our Understanding of When (with Respect to Life Cycles), Where (with Respect to Geographic Variation), and How (at the Organismal and Molecular Levels) Heatwaves Impact Orchard Bees. This Supports Sustained Pollination Services to Agriculture and Enables Farmers and Other Stakeholders to Plan for Heatwaves.