Pollinator ResearchLogan Sauers
2020 The Garden Club of America Board of Associates Centennial Pollinator Fellowship
A Pollinator’s Tiny Friends: Investigating the Role of Microbial Communities in the Health of their Pollinator Hosts
Logan A. Sauers is a PhD candidate at Illinois State University, studying the interactions between bumblebees and their beneficial gut microbiota. He is passionate about uncovering how beneficial microbes and their hosts evolve and interact. His master’s thesis uncovered high specificity in colonization of a core gut bacteria and bumblebees. Sauers is expanding his focus to research how multiple bacterial species may work together, providing greater benefits to their hosts in terms of nutrition and parasite defense than the individual species. His work will further the understanding of bumblebee health and how perturbations of gut microbiota may influence it.
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.
Learn more See all recipients