Pollination in a changing environment

我的研究解决了环境变化--尤其是气候变化--对传粉者和它们访问的植物的影响。通过在落基山脉的观察和实验，我和我的学生将调查气候变化对野生本地蜜蜂种群的影响。特别是，我们将研究温度波动和积雪减少如何影响蜜蜂的生存和蜜蜂花卉食物来源的可用性。由于气候变化可能导致某些植物变得稀少，或者对依赖它们的蜜蜂来说过早开花，我们还将研究决定蜜蜂是否愿意采用新类型植物作为花粉来源的因素。我们将使用我们的结果结合数学模型来测试不同的气候变化情景将如何影响蜜蜂数量。我们还将通过研究一组相关植物开花时间的进化变化是否与花生物学的进化变化有关，来研究环境变化和长时间尺度的授粉之间的关系。 这项研究将提供关于本土独居蜂生物学的基本信息，这是一群我们仍然知之甚少的传粉者--尽管它们被认为是加拿大和世界各地农作物生产的重要贡献者。它将阐明气候变化对蜜蜂种群和植物-传粉者相互作用的威胁程度，反之，我们可以期望植物和传粉者以何种方式适应环境变化。

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. This research will provide basic information on the biology of native solitary bees, a group of pollinators we still know little about--even though they are recognized as important contributors to crop production in Canada and worldwide. It will clarify the extent to which climate change threatens bee populations and plant-pollinator interactions, and, conversely, the ways in which we can expect plants and pollinators to adjust to environmental change.