Hollis Woodard

Bumblebee Queens Prefer to Live in a Toxic Home

tomwt — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 20:55:39 +0000

Bumblebee Queens Prefer to Live in a Toxic Home tomwt Wed, 10/16/2024 - 13:55 More CNAS in the Media Darren Incorvaia | The New York Times October 16, 2024

THE NEW YORK TIMES - North-facing, sloping ground with loose, sandy soil — if you’re a bumblebee queen on the market for a winter home, these features will have you racing to make an offer. But scientists were recently stunned to find there’s something else these monarchs like in a place to hibernate: pesticides.

In a paper published last month in the journal Science of The Total Environment, researchers described an experiment that gave common eastern bumblebee queens a choice: hibernate in clean soil, or in soil laced with pesticides. The insects behaved in a way that was the opposite of what was expected.

“Queens did not avoid any of the pesticides,” said Sabrina Rondeau, an ecologist at the University of Ottawa. “Even at high concentrations they didn’t, and still seem to prefer the soil contaminated with pesticides.” The finding, Dr. Rondeau admits, was “very surprising.”

One researcher described the study’s findings as “terrifying.”

“It wasn’t just one pesticide at one concentration, it was across the board,” said S. Hollis Woodard, a bee biologist at the University of California, Riverside. That’s scary, she said, because our soils are full of pesticides — many that traveled far from where they were originally used. Gravitating toward these pesticides may put queens at high risk for direct exposure, with potentially damaging consequences.

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Department of Entomology

Hollis Woodard

These Stunning Portraits of Insects Reveal the Intricacies of an Amazing World

tomwt — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 15:43:18 +0000

These Stunning Portraits of Insects Reveal the Intricacies of an Amazing World tomwt Wed, 08/28/2024 - 08:43 More CNAS in the Media Joe Spring | Smithsonian Magazine August 28, 2024

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Thanks to a time stamp, Thorben Danke knows the exact moment he got hooked on photographing insects. On July 22, 2016, at 6:05 p.m. he happened to see a green bottle fly sitting near him on his garage wall. Danke had been playing around with the settings on his pricy new digital camera, learning how to focus on closer subjects. He snapped a photo of the fly, and when he looked at the shot on his computer, he was amazed. The quality was so good that he could see the ommatidia, or individual units, of the insect’s compound eyes.

“From that point on, I was drawn into macrophotography,” he writes in an email, “driven by the overwhelming beauty of insects and the fascination with these little jewels on my doorstep.”

Some scientists who have spent their careers studying insects see captivating images like Danke’s as important. “Maybe at the heart of conserving insects is to be able to see them and connect with them,” says Hollis Woodard, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside, “and these images are obviously a great way to do that.

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Department of Entomology

Hollis Woodard

How you can help count and conserve native bees

ilseu — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 17:03:11 +0000

How you can help count and conserve native bees ilseu Tue, 12/08/2020 - 09:03 More CNAS in the Media Michele C. Hollow | The New York Times December 07, 2020

NEW YORK TIMES - In the last 20 years, the rusty patched bumblebee population declined by 87 percent because of habitat loss, use of pesticides and disease. This fuzzy bee, native to the continental United States, gets its name from the rusty patch on its back.

“While regional studies have tracked the decline of native bees,” said S. Hollis Woodard, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside, “there hasn’t been a coordinated nationwide effort to monitor these pollinators.”

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Department of Entomology

Hollis Woodard

This is a great time to busy yourself with Bees

ilseu — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 02:25:37 +0000

This is a great time to busy yourself with Bees ilseu Mon, 04/06/2020 - 19:25 More CNAS in the Media Jessica Leigh Hester | Atlas Obscura April 02, 2020

ATLAS OBSCURA - When Hollis Woodard picks up the phone on a Friday afternoon in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has to pry her hands from the dirt. “I’m working on the yard furiously to try and soothe myself,” she says. Woodard, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside, studies bumble bees—a profession that sometimes pulls her to landscapes as lush and dreamy as a Bob Ross painting.

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Department of Entomology

Hollis Woodard