Climate Cafe: Pollinator Research at Umass

Dr. Robert Gegear, founder of the Gegear Lab at UMass Dartmouth, will be our keynote speaker.

The lab studies factors influencing the dynamic interplay between pollinators and the flowering plants that they service.  Their current research projects address such questions as:  What is the functional significance of floral display complexity? Why do foraging preferences vary among pollinator species? What are the causes and consequences of global pollinator decline? How effective are different restoration and conservation strategies for native pollination systems?  To address these questions, they use highly integrative experimental approaches that combine concepts and methodologies from fields such as animal behavior, human psychology, molecular biology, community ecology, and computational biology. 

They primarily use bumblebees (Bombus spp.) because they have evolved the cognitive capacity to flexibly track food resources (nectar and pollen) in complex multi-sensory floral environments; they have rich co-evolutionary relationships with many native flowering plant species; they are highly amenable to experimental study of behavior under laboratory and field conditions; they play a critical role in maintaining ecosystem health and biodiversity; and they are easily identified to the species level under natural conditions by citizen scientists. 

Don't miss this fascinating talk on important research being done right here in Massachusetts!

Click on the link to the right to register (use GUEST if you don't know or don't have log in info).  ALL ARE WELCOME