Submitted by Gordon Frankie on
Under the direction of Dr. Gordon Frankie, the UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab is monitoring diversity of and abundance of California native bee species (1600 species state-wide) and their plant preferences at stone fruit orchards in northern CA and at avocado orchards in southern California. Collaboring with farmers at these orchards, we have been investiaging whether installing pollinator habitat gardens increases the diversity and abundance of native bee and other pollinator species that can supplement pollinato of crops by honey bees.
We are seeking 2 motivated undergraduate students with interests in entomology, botany, and ecology. Ideal student researchers will have an interest in being involved with insect specimen curation, plant and insect identification and public outreach and education. There will be opportunities to continue with this project in the spring semester.
For more information about the Urban Bee Lab, please visit helpabee.com
Students will analyze and curate native bee and other pollinating insect specimens collected from the orchards. Students may participate in education or outreach events for the public or elementary schools students. There are also opportunities to assist in field research, plant propagation, and gardening to care for bee-attractive plants used for research.
Students will have a strong interest in the following:
- Learning about insect biology, especially related to pollinators
- Learning to curate insect specimen collections, including pinning, labeling and databasing
- Learning about plant-insect interactions and research related to native bees and crop plant pollination
- Some gardening, including planting, watering, weeding, and plant propagation
- Participating in public outreach about bee-plant relationships
- Sharing reserach with the public through social media platforms