What Governs the Quality of Pollen?
If you're interested in pollen and pollinators, you'll want to attend the UC Davis Department of Entomology seminar at 12:10 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 1 in 122 Briggs Hall.
That's when T’ai Roulston, research associate professor and curator, State Arboretum of Virginia, will speak on "Pollen as a Resource for Pollinators: What Governs Quality?"
Pollen is a bee's protein. Nectar is a bee's sugar or carbohydrate.
T'ai Roulston will be speaking specifically on pollen. "Lab work using the sweat bee Lasioglossum zephyrum has shown that protein concentration of pollen may dramatically influence offspring size," he says.
"T'ai's work on native bees and insect-plant interactions includes pollination biology, foraging ecology, nesting biology, life-history as well as some work on multi-trophic interactions," said host Neal Williams, assistant professor. (Williams is currently in Japan to present a lecture at the International Symposium on Pollinator Conservation, set Jan. 27-29 in Fukuoka.)
Roulston says on his website:
"My primary research area is plant-pollinator interactions, which I study through field and laboratory approaches." These include
1. Studies of pollen chemistry, particularly protein, to characterize the diversity of pollen nutrient rewards and their effects on pollinator host plant choice and larval development;
2. Specialization/Generalization in plant-pollinator interactions
Other research areas include endangered species conservation, habitat fragmentation, foraging behavior and nestmate recognition in social Hymenoptera, and the impact of exotic species on native organisms.
Coordinating the UC Davis Department of Entomology winter seminar series are assistant professors Louie Yang and Joanna Chiu.
If you can't make it to the the lecture, Professor James R. Carey plans to video-record it. It will be posted in about two weeks on UCTV.
Female sweat bee in the genus Lasioglossum, on a rock purslane. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
T'ai Roulston at State Arboretum of Virginia.