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I am all about bees, really.
Most of my work focuses on understanding
the ecology and life history of different bee species.
And some groups of bees are suffering
from population declines.
Bumblebees, in particular, have been declining very rapidly
in the last few decades.
Bumblebees are really important pollinators
for both natural and agricultural contexts.
Without them, lots of plant species
would not be able to reproduce.
So they're crucial parts of every ecosystem.
We are at the University of Virginia's Blandy Experimental
Farm.
We are an experiment station devoted to plant and insect
ecology.
This past summer, we were working
on how landscape change and land use affect bumblebee colonies.
I'm really interested in looking at how well bees
do in rural areas versus urban areas.
Now, when you just think about it quickly,
it seems like an urban area would be kind of a tough place
to be a bee.
But on the other hand, you've got gardens.
And people plant lots of flowers all year round.
And a lot of those flowers are really good for bees.
Now on the other hand, we think of rural places
as being really, really good places for bees.
But in rural areas, you often have times of year
in which there are very few flowers that are available.
What we've been noticing is that there
are some colonies in urban sites that did just
as well as those in rural sites, or even better.
Even with expanding urbanization and increasing infrastructure,
bumblebees can still survive and even thrive.
There's a caveat there-- they can't survive
without these resources.
People should have gardens with flowers
that support native bumblebee species in order for us
to see these results.
Most of our crop species are, in fact, insect pollinated.
That means that we need pollinators to produce the food
and fruit that we eat.
And most important is our crops [INAUDIBLE] bees.
And keeping the bees in the landscape
around our agricultural fields, around our gardens-- that's
what keeps our food supply going.
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