Tuesday, March 10th
MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street,
Harvard University
07:30 PM
From individuals to ecosystems: Using pollinator neuroecology as a tool for biodiversity conservation
Robert Gegear
Professor
Department of Biology, UMass Dartmouth
Wild pollinators have declined in abundance, species richness, and geographic distribution at an alarming rate worldwide for unknown reasons, posing a significant threat to ecosystem health and biodiversity. Although the cause of pollinator decline is currently unknown, habitat loss, pesticides, disease, exotic species, and climate change are widely thought to be significant contributing factors. In this talk, Dr. Gegear will outline his efforts to gain novel insight into the causes and consequences of pollinator decline through integrative analysis of behavior and its underlying mechanism. Using bumblebees as a model, Dr. Gegear will present experimental data showing that pesticide and disease exposure can impair cognitive flexibility needed for foragers to adaptively exploit floral resources, and virtual data showing that these individual-level stressor effects can ‘scale up’ to drive population decline and loss of biodiversity. Dr. Gegear will also present field data showing that floral resource varies considerably among bumblebee species, suggesting that variation in sensory preferences among species may play an important role in population decline. Finally, Dr. Gegear will discuss how he is combining his research findings with public outreach to accelerate the implementation of effective conservation strategies for pollinator-mediated biodiversity in New England, highlighting the eco-technology that has been developed to crowdsource the collection and visualization of species-level ecological data on pollinator-plant relationships.
The talk is free and open to the public. The meeting is readily accessible via public transportation. Parking is available in the Oxford Street Garage with advance arrangement, as described here, or (usually but not always) at spaces on nearby streets. Everyone is also welcome to join us for dinner before the talk (beginning at 5:45 PM) at Changsho, 1712 Mass Ave., Cambridge, MA (** please note the change in venue)
CEC meetings are held the second Tuesday of the month from October through May. The evening schedule typically includes an informal dinner (5:45 to 7:15 PM) followed by our formal meeting (7:30 – 9:00 PM). The latter begins with club business and is followed by a 60-minute entomology related presentation. Membership is open to amateur and professional entomologists.
