{"id":11092,"date":"2015-07-06T11:48:25","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T15:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=11092"},"modified":"2015-07-06T11:48:25","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T15:48:25","slug":"humble-pollinators-little-keys-to-life-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2015\/07\/06\/humble-pollinators-little-keys-to-life-on-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Humble pollinators \u2013 little keys to life on earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2015 SEEDS Leadership meeting gets a tour of\u00a0Pollination Science, Communication, and Policy.<\/h3>\n

A guest post by SEEDS Undergraduate Research Fellow Roxanne Hoorn<\/strong> of Eckerd College, SEEDS chapter representative Andrea Urioste<\/strong> of the University of New Mexico, and by Teresa Mourad<\/strong> and Fred Abbott<\/strong> from ESA\u2019s Education and Diversity Programs Office.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The SEEDS Leadership Meeting visits experimental honey bees with Sam Droge (hat-less at center) at the US Geological Survey\u2019s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. Credit, ESA<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Pollinators are vital to life!\u00a0That was the message, loud and clear, at the 10th<\/sup> ESA SEEDS Leadership Meeting on May 7-10, 2015. Twenty-four undergraduate students, including the 2014-15 and 2015-16 SEEDS Undergraduate Research Fellows<\/a> gathered at North Bay Adventures in North End, MD.\u00a0 We came from 19 SEEDS Chapters.<\/p>\n

This year, we learned a lot about pollinators, especially native bees, bumble bees and honey bees. This Leadership Meeting focused on \u201cPollination Science, Communication, and Policy\u201d. The theme was a natural extension from the 2014 Leadership Meeting, when participants reflected on \u201cFood Security, Food Justice\u201d and learned that, in the US, an average of 40 percent of food produced is lost due to waste!<\/p>\n

Without bees<\/a>, there would be few crops we could rely on as sources of food.\u00a0 About a third of our food calories come from plants pollinated by bees. \u00a0Indeed, many plants depend primarily on bees to be reproductively successful.\u00a0 In the list of endangered and threatened plant species<\/a> compiled by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, an overwhelming 96 percent are flowering plants!<\/p>\n

Sam Droege, from the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (PWRC), invited us to think about how pollinators and plants have evolved to depend on each other. It is like a dance between them, as the plants put a lot of resources into their appearance to attract their pollinator. Color is the main advertising strategy for bees. It was cool to think of bees as vegetarian wasps!<\/p>\n

Francisco Posada, who studies the life and behavior of bumble bees at PWRC, said that the presence of bumblebees is a great sign that an area is healthy and thriving. \u00a0He also shared how the study of bumble bee populations can serve as an amazing tool to teach biology, ecology, genetics, and animal behavior. Many bumble bees are native to the US and, unlike the honey bees, most native bees do not sting. The pots the queens make are truly amazing.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A native Bombus griseocollis<\/i> bumble bee queen photographed by Sam Droege<\/a> and the USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab. in downtown Washington, DC.<\/p><\/div>\n

Honey bees and bumble bees both belong to the large bee family Apidae, but honey bees are not native to the US. Today, scientists and farmers are very concerned about the poor health of our honey bees. As honey bees are driven from farm to farm across the US, they experience a high degree of stress. They are also exposed to pesticides that are applied on the crops, which not only eliminate unwanted pests but have consequences for the bee colonies as well.<\/p>\n

Most of us didn\u2019t know too much about pollinators before the Leadership Meeting. We had lots of questions. Here are just a few:<\/p>\n