All Projects

Pollinator News

‘Nature’s Medicine Cabinet’ Helps Bumble Bees Reduce Disease Load

February 18, 2015  |  Vermont Center for Ecostudies

Researchers studying the interaction between plants, pollinators and parasites report that in recent experiments, bees infected with a common intestinal parasite had reduced parasite levels in their guts after seven days if the bees also consumed natural toxins present in plant nectar.

Bee Foraging Chronically Impaired by Pesticide Exposure

November 3, 2014  |  Vermont Center for Ecostudies

A study co-authored by a University of Guelph scientist that involved fitting bumblebees with tiny radio frequency tags shows long-term exposure to a neonicotinoid pesticide hampers bees’ ability to forage…

After 90 Percent Decline, Federal Protection Sought for Monarch Butterfly

August 26, 2014  |  Kent McFarland

WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety as co-lead petitioners joined by the Xerces Society and renowned monarch scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower filed a legal petition…

Plight of the Pollinators on UVM Extension’s ‘Across The Fence’

February 12, 2014  |  Kent McFarland

Recently, VCE biologist Kent McFarland was on Across the Fence, produced by the University of Vermont Extension. They have been on-air on WCAX-TV since 1955, the longest-running, locally-produced television program in the…

Bumble Bees in Peril

December 2, 2013  |  Bryan Pfeiffer

Unprecedented search by VCE reveals four species either extinct or declining More than one-quarter of Vermont’s bumble bee species, which are vital crop pollinators, have either vanished or are in…