Submitted by Gordon Frankie on
Under the direction of Dr. Gordon Frankie, the UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab is monitoring diversity and abundance of California native bee species (1600 species state-wide) and their plant preferences at UC Hopland and at avocado orchards in southern California.
Collaborating with farmers at these orchards, we have been investigating whether installing pollinator habitat gardens increases the diversity and abundance of native bees and other pollinator species that can supplement pollination of crops by honey bees. In southern California, native bees and other insects will be monitored regularly at three avocado orchards in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
The Lab is also involved in investigating the role of hedgerows in promoting native bee diversity at the UC Hopland Research and Extension center in Northern California. Native bees are sampled several times a year to determine the effectiveness of the hedgerow planted at the Hopland research site.
1) Students will curate native bee and other pollinating insect specimens collected from the orchards through labeling and databasing
2) Students may participate in education outreach
3) Potential opportunities for field research, plant propagation and gardening to care for the bee-attractive plants used for research.
We seek students with a strong interest in the following:
1) Learning about insect biology, especially related to pollinators. A desire to learn to curate insect specimen collections, including insect pinning, labeling and databasing.
2) Learning about California native plants and pollinator-attractive horticultural plant varieties. An interest in learning to identify plant species is highly desirable.
3) Learning about plant-insect interactions and research related to native bees and crop plant pollination.
4) Gardening, including planting, watering, weeding and plant propagation.
5) Participating in public education and outreach about bee-plant relationships
7) Sharing research with the public through social media and journalism