At UW-Eau Claire, the Bernauer Pollinator Conservation Lab aims to combine modern advances in technology with traditional ecology methods to increase our understanding of global change on pollination biology, plant-pollinator interaction, and pollination services to design and implement pollinator conservation strategies.
The Pollinator Conservation lab explores two major themes:
The effects of global change on pollinator communities
Pollinator community dynamics will be investigated in natural settings near UWEC to understand whether climate change is influencing the plant-pollinator networks in early spring wildflowers, and in agricultural settings to better understand how day-to-day fluctuations in temperature influence pollination services to crops.
The impacts of climate change on pollinator foraging and learning
Previous research has shown that temperature can influence memory formation and learning in insects (and other animals too!). As the climate changes, how will this affect an insect's ability to learn? We will utilize bench top foraging arenas and computer vision tools to understand whether temperature affects pollinator learning.
Stay tuned for more updates!
Dr. Bernauer
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