The Minnesota Bumble Bee Atlas—Tracking & Conserving Minnesota’s Native Bumble Bees

The Minnesota Bumble Bee Atlas—Tracking and Conserving Minnesota’s Native Bumble Bees

Bumble bees are charismatic, easily recognizable pollinators. They play a key role in sustaining the health of our environment. Current information suggests that many species of bumble bee face an uncertain future, but we currently lack the data needed to implement effective conservation measures.

The Minnesota Bumble Bee Atlas is a community science project that recruits and trains citizen volunteers to gather data needed to track and conserve Minnesota’s native bumble bees. It’s a collaboration of the Xerces Society with the University of Minnesota and the MN DNR. Our speaker, Genevieve “Jenny” Pugesek from the Xerces Society is one of the project’s managers. She’ll describe the ongoing BB Atlas project and offer some preliminary comments on data from year’s surveys that they have just started to analyze.

Genevieve is a conservation biologist. She earned her Ph.D. at Tufts University studying the nesting and overwintering ecology of bumble bees. Prior to joining Xerces, she studied the effects of prescribed fire in oak savannas on the abundance of bumble bees as a post doc at UW-Madison.

This presentation is free and the open to the public. All members and friends of Wild Ones St Croix Oak Savanna are welcome. Come join us!

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