Pollinator ResearchEvan Palmer-Young
2014 The Garden Club of America Board of Associates Centennial Pollinator Fellowship
Evan Palmer-Young is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Department of Biology. Evan's study objective is to determine the synergistic or antagonistic effects of medicinal dietary compounds. His research will take place in the Northeast from July 2014 through May 2015. A 2011 U.S. Survey revealed eight bee species have experienced up to 96% population decline. The parasite, (Crithidia bombi) is strongly implicated in causing its decline. It causes the bee to lose its ability to distinguish between flowers that contain nectar and those that don't, thus bees slowly starve to death. Commercially-raised bees carry this parasite; wild bees do not. Infected bees escape from greenhouses and infect wild ones. A simple netting could prevent this. Bee parasite resistance could be increased by ingesting compounds that have greater toxicity to bee parasites than to bees themselves.
The Garden Club of America Board of Associates Centennial Pollinator Fellowship
To provide funding to study the causes of pollinator decline, in particular bees, bats, butterflies, and moths, which could lead to potential solutions for their conservation and sustainability.
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