Heat and desiccation tolerances predict bee abundance under climate change," was recentlyKazenel completed her Ph.D. in Biology at UNM in 2022 and is currently a visiting assistant professor of Biology at Earlham College in Indiana.," Kazenel said."Bees are the most important pollinators of many wild plants and agricultural crops, meaning that they are crucial to sustaining natural ecosystems and the human food supply.
"Each month from March through October, when bees are active, we open traps in the field at the SNWR to collect bees, which we then identify to species. This gives us an incredible record of how bee abundance and diversity have changed from month-to-month and year-to-year over time. We have been able to pair our long-term bee data with data from on-site weather stations to understand how changes in bee abundance and diversity correspond with climate," Kazenel said.
The research revealed strong evidence that climate change is reshaping bee communities in the southwestern U.S. "We also found that larger-bodied bees dominated communities under the arid conditions that will increase in the future. Change in thecomposition of bee communities could alter pollination of plants, because the size of a bee and a flower need to 'match' for effective pollination to occur. Our study therefore provides important new evidence of how climate change is directly affecting bee communities and the plants they pollinate," she said.