Insect pollinators serve vital roles in natural and agricultural systems. There is a lack of long-term data on wild bee populations in North America, so standardized sampling protocols have been developed to address this need. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of 10 years of long

Predation and mutualism take up a large part of interactions within communities. These multi-trophic level interactions affect the makeup of the community. We explored how predation impacts the strength of mutualism between ants and aphids on the plant Ligusticum porteri. It has been a base assumpti

Studies have shown that there have been pollinator declines occurring worldwide (e.g., Beismiejer et al. 2006; Potts et al. 2010; Burkle et al. 2013; Goulson et al. 2015). It is important to understand plant-pollinator interactions as thoroughly as possible, including which species are interacting w

Terrestrial soils store more carbon than exists in the atmosphere and all plant life combined. Thus, small changes in the amount of carbon stored in soil or released back to the atmosphere from soil can have large impacts on atmospheric carbon concentrations and climate change. As climate change pro

Native bumble bees play key roles in their ecosystems as pollinators, but little is known about the quantity and quality of floral resources on which they depend in natural areas across a season. Additionally, how those resources might be affected by abiotic factors, many of which are being altered

The production and structure of animal signals may be condition dependent and may provide more than one type of information to receivers. While alarm calls are not typically viewed as condition dependent, recent studies have suggested that their structure and possibly their propensity to be emitted

Mutualisms are the species interaction in which both mutualist partners benefit from the relationship. Most mutualisms involve multiple interacting species and associating with multiple mutualist partners can be beneficial if they provide complementary benefits. Yet, mutualist species may also compe

Burying beetles require carrion in order to successfully reproduce and they compete with vertebrate scavengers, other burying beetles, ants, flies, fungi, and microbes for this ephemeral resource. Burying beetles have mechanisms to combat competition from fly eggs, fungi, and microbes, but interacti

Premise of research. Road dust affects the quantity of pollen received by Ipomopsis aggregata flowers, with dusty flowers receiving less pollen than undusty flowers. One possibility is that hummingbird pollinators visit dusty flowers less and deliver less pollen. This could happen if dusty flowers p

Osmia is a genus of solitary, cavity-nesting bees which will readily nest in artificial nest- blocks. Nest-blocks (or “trap-nests”) have long been used to study cavity-nesting bees and have recently been popularized for conserving bees in urban and agricultural systems. What attributes of the nest-b

Anthropogenic climate change is affecting many ecosystems. Changes in the melting of snowpack have altered flowering phenology in subalpine meadows. The subalpine meadows at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado are experiencing shifts in co-flowering patterns. Two flowers, Li

Alpine zones are characterized by climatic conditions that can vary over short vertical distances. Therefore, elevational gradients have been used to study how changes in climate can influence plant form, function, and diversity. In my study, I examined floral traits in native communities along an e

Maintaining high levels of self-fertilization within a population increases homozygosity, exposes deleterious alleles, and may cause inbreeding depression. Yet, many species of flowering plants have evolved to self-fertilize a majority of the time. Often, self-fertilization is favored over outcrossi

Eavesdropping is recognizing and gleaning information from a communication intended for someone else. Eavesdropping on alarm calls can benefit eavesdroppers by decreasing the time they spend allocated to vigilance, giving them more time for other behaviors such as foraging. Although there have been