This week, Olivia and two undergraduate collaborators from UW-Madison worked together during the summer of 2024 to study cranberry and cucumber pollination. While in the cucumber fields, the three of us noticed that almost every cucumber flower was occupied by at least one striped cucumber beetle. We collected beetles from flowers and looked at the quantity and identify of the pollen they collected to see if they had the possibility to pollinate the cucumber flowers they were visiting. Stay tuned for the findings – we’ve just submitted this short communication to the Journal of Pollination Ecology!
Above: A sweat bee (Halictidae) visits a watermelon flower alongside a striped cucumber beetle.
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