Our first summer of tracking the pollinators that visit ornamental plants is complete!

Male holding a handheld vacuum with a long tube attached to it.
Student researcher holding small vacuum used to collect pollinators off of annual flower plots at Michigan State University. (Photo by Erica Hotchkiss.)

Throughout the summer, our research teams across five states made morning and afternoon visits to each of our plant sites. During each visit, they counted and identified the pollinators visiting each plant. When a pollinator could not be identified in the field, it was captured with a sweep net and taken back to the lab for later identification.

Person swinging a sweep net through prairie grass.
Example of a sweep net being used to sample insects on vegetation.

Given the data we’ve compiled so far, our team has spent over 1,500 hours working on pollinators observations.

We look forward to another field season before reporting final results.

Researchers: Drs. Jim Bethke, Christine Casey, JC Chong, Christina Grozinger, Harland Patch, Dave Smitley, Kim Stoner

States: CA, CT, MI, PA, SC