Pollination in a changing environment

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My research addresses the effects of environmental change--especially climate change--on pollinators and the plants they visit. Using observations and experiments in the Rocky Mountains, my students and I will investigate the consequences of climate variation for populations of wild, native bees. In particular, we will study how temperature fluctuations and reductions in snow cover affect bee survival and the availability of bees' floral food sources. Because climate change could cause certain plants to become scarce or to flower too early for the bees that depend on them, we will also study the factors that determine bees' willingness to adopt new types of plants as pollen sources. We will use our results in combination with mathematical models to test how different climate-change scenarios will affect bee populations. We will also examine the relationship between environmental change and pollination over long time-scales by studying whether evolutionary shifts in flowering time in a group of related plants have been associated with evolutionary changes in floral biology.