Maintaining the diversity of wild bees is a priority for preserving ecosystem function and promoting stability and productivity of agroecosystems. However, wild bee communities face many threats and beekeeping could be one of them, because honey bees may have a strong potential to outcompete wild po

One possible effect of climate change is the generation of a mismatch in the seasonal timing of interacting organisms, owing to species-specific shifts in phenology. Despite concerns that plants and pollinators might be at risk of such decoupling, there have been few attempts to test this hypothesis

Parasites have the potential to alter population dynamics by decreasing fitness and increasing mortality of their hosts. Changes in ecosystems may also create scenarios that are more conducive to higher infection or parasitism. This survey examined parasitism of Bombus by Crithidia bombi, Nosema bom

Concerns of the decline of pollinators and their services have recently been raised. While several hypothesis have been studied, such has the shift of flowering phenology so it no longer overlaps with pollinators and habitat fragmentation, this study investigated the decline of the nectar robbing bu

Optimal foraging theory states that there are benefits and costs from foraging. If the animal shows optimal foraging behavior, the benefits minus the costs from foraging should be maximized. One assumption of optimal foraging theory is that animals can recognize food, which for butterflies means det

Abstract Insect herbivores that are tended by ants exhibit a range in host plant use from specialists to extreme generalists. Potential factors that may influence relative suitability of different host plants include the presence or absence of ants and the size of aggregations formed by nymphs feedi

Environmental factors influence variation in life histories by affecting growth, development, and reproduction. We conducted an experiment in outdoor mesocosms to examine how diet and a time constraint on juvenile development (pond-drying) influence life-history trade-offs (growth, development, adul

The effects of an accidentally introduced beetle Brachypterolus pulicarius on the growth and reproduction of its host, the invasive plant Linaria vulgaris, growing under field conditions across multiple years and sites in western Colorado, USA are studied.

Abstract 1. Mutualistic associations can vary over spatial and ecological gradients. For herbivorous insects that engage in mutualisms with ants, plant quality can be a particularly important source of variation, because of the upward transfer of nutrients from plants to herbivores to ants. 2. A pre

As well-studied, annual species inhabiting an environment with a short growing season, the bumble bees (Bombus spp.) in the area around the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) near Crested Butte, Colorado, provide an ideal system for monitoring climate change. In 1974, Graham Pyke conducted

The outcome of species interactions is often difficult to predict, depending on the organisms involved and the ecological context. Nectar robbers remove nectar from flowers, often without providing pollination service, and their effects on plant reproduction vary in strength and direction. In two ca

It is found that experimental colonies whose distributions mimicked the natural distributions retained a larger percentage of colony biomass over three weeks when fed on honeydew, relative to colonies composed of only large or only small workers.

Changes in nitrogen availability can alter plant community structure, composition, and abundance as well as higher order interactions. The goal of this study is to investigate the relationships between soil nitrogen, plant reproductive success, and solitary bee behavior and reproduction. Three diffe