Dear list, We are a team of three Postdoctoral Researchers working in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Dakota State University. We are interested in how insecticide exposure may affect nest construction in the alfalfa leafcutter bee, a critical pollinator used in many agricultural crops. We are raising funds through a crowdfunding campaign in order to pay for an undergraduate assistant this summer: https://experiment.com/beenesting.
This work will have critical implications for the management of the alfalfa leafcutter bee. Furthermore, it will help lay the groundwork for using nest architecture to study the behavior and fitness of other solitary bees, including crop pollinators such as mason bees .We hope this research will help us better understand how insecticide exposure affects solitary bee fitness, as indicated by nest size and structure, and elucidate important gaps between individual and population level dynamics. You can find more information on the Bee Grant Challenge that this project is part of here: https://experiment.com/grants/bees. We are already funded at 20% through this platform and have until December 8th to reach our funding goals. We sincerely appreciate any help with our campaign. If you are unable to donate, please consider sharing this project with your colleagues. Every little bit helps! Best, Raphael Royaute Bryan Helm Rachel Mallinger
