My research focuses on characterizing bee communities and pollination services in Indiana’s specialty crop systems. Although its landscape is dominated by agronomic crops, Indiana also produces a diverse array of specialty crops, including apples, blueberries, tomatoes, and watermelons. Each crop system is characterized by unique pollination requirements, management practices, and phenology, with potential implications for the bee communities they host and the pollination services those bees provide.

My work combines flower observations and pan traps to describe bee community composition in each crop, with a focus on comparing the contributions of managed bees (e.g., honey bees) and wild bees to pollination. Additionally, I experimentally manipulate flowers using pollinator exclusion and supplemental pollination to quantify the pollination services that bees provide in each crop and identify pollen limitation (yield gaps caused by insufficient pollination).

So far, my research has demonstrated that specialty crop systems in Indiana host unique and diverse bee communities, and while bees provide significant pollination services in every crop system, many crops also experience pollen limitation. This work is funded by the Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) and conducted in collaboration with Ashley Leach at OSU.