we are a RESEARCH GROUP WORKING TO UNDERSTAND BUMBLE BEEs and advance their conservation through the study of their behavior, physiology, and social organization
Lab Happenings:
- Welcome Dr. Clara Stuligross, a new postdoc member of the lab who has received a USDA NIFA Postdoctoral Fellowship to study Osmia responses to thermal stress!
- Congrats to undergraduate researcher Melissa Arellano for her acceptance to the California Alliance for Minority Participation program for the winter quarter!
- The lab is starting a new project, funded by USDA NIFA, to study the generation of function of body size variation in bumble bees - in collaboration with Dr. Matt Carlson at the University of Alaska Anchorage 🐝
- New grant funding for the lab is coming from the Competitive State Wildlife Grant Program to advance wild bee conservation in the US, in collaboration with wildlife biologists and conservationists from CA, VT, TX & WA 🐝
- Congrats to lab undergrad Andrew Her for receiving the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences' Academic Excellence Award for a graduating student!
- Congrats to lab grad student Blanca Peto for receiving the Harry Shorey Award from the department for her work on pheromones and social regulation!
- Congrats to lab grad students Meghan Moore and Blanca Peto for receiving funding from the Shipley-Skinner Reserve - Riverside County Endowment for their research on wild bumble bees!
- Congrats to Dr. Clau Costa for receiving a Sequoia Science Learning Center Grant to study bumble bee body size variation in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks 💚
- Lab postdoc Dr. Clau Costa has received a 2023 UCR Postdoctoral Award from the Riverside Postdoctoral Association, the Office of Research and Development, and the Graduate Division at UCR -- go Clau!! 👑
- Congratulations to recent graduate of the lab, Dr. Natalie Fischer! ✨ We will miss you Nat!
- Graduate student Blanca Peto received a 2023 Simes Award from the William Simes Research Fund, to do field research at Hastings Natural History Reservation 🌼
- Congratulations to recent graduate of the lab, Dr. Erica Sarro! Excited to see what all you accomplish next!
- New lab paper out, led by Dr. Claudinéia Costa, about how pollen diet mediates brain gene expression in bumble bee queens 🌻
- New lab paper out, led by Dr. (!) Kaleigh Fisher, about bumble bee communities in California
- The lab has welcomed three (!) new graduate students: Meghan Moore, Blanca Peto, and Blanca Guillén - excited to see what all they accomplish
- A new lab paper out, co-led by Kaleigh Fisher and Erica Sarro, about how bumble bee workers divide labor in the nest during the incipient social nesting stage 📊
- A new lab paper out, led by Erica Sarro, about early spring queens and ovary development 🌸
- A new lab paper out, led by Dr. Claudinéia Costa, about the loss of PTTH in social bee evolution 🥐
- The lab welcomes new graduate student Meghan Moore, who is pursuing a PhD on the sensory biology of bumble bee queens
- A new paper out, led by Dr. Hamutahl Cohen of the Ponisio lab, on how mass blooming sunflower is a "mixed bag" for wild bees; this work is part of a collab between the Woodard and Ponisio labs 🌻💚
- New lab paper out about how workers influence the reproductive status of queen bumble bees - congrats to Erica who led this work!
- New lab paper out about how queen and worker brood care lead to developmental differences in offspring - congrats to Clau who led this work!
- Congrats to Dr. Kaleigh Fisher - the first PhD to eclose from the Woodard lab - for completing her PhD and receiving a USDA NIFA postdoctoral fellowship to work with Dr. Santiago Ramírez ☺️
- New lab paper out about flexibility in the pre-diapause nutrient sequestration period, led by lab alum Kristal Watrous 💗
- Congrats to Erica for receiving a Colorado Mountain Club Foundation Grant to support her work on B. appositus this summer!
- Congrats to Erica for getting her first paper accepted in one of our favorite journals, Conservation Physiology - in it, she shows that workers influence queen hormone levels, reproduction, and longevity 📈
- Congrats to Erica for her acceptance to the US Fish and Wildlife Service Directorate Fellows Program - she'll be out looking for B. franklini and working on western bumble bee conservation this summer! 😍
- Congrats to Blanca Ortega and Blanca Peto for getting accepted into our entomology graduate program; both will be joining the Woodard lab in fall 2021!
- Nat & Erica will be traveling to Colorado to work at RMBL this summer and received fellowship support for their projects; thank you RMBL, we 💚 you
- Congrats to Erica for receiving a Graduate Dean's Dissertation Research Grant to support her work at RMBL this summer
- We are all so proud of Phong Hong 🌠 for getting accepted to multiple graduate programs to pursue his dream of working in global/public health
- Hollis got a CAREER grant from the NSF to study the regulation of maternal care behavior in bumble bee queens!
- Hollis received UCR's 2020-2021 Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement!
- Hollis received the 2021 ESA-PB Student Mentoring Award!
- New lab paper out about how queen brood rearing differs from worker brood care, led by Dr. Claudinéia Costa!
- Our work on queen overwintering and nutrition was featured in Conservation Physiology; thank you Rachael for the awesome write-up of the work and Erin for the artwork!
- The lab has a new initiative to coordinate and support efforts to monitor native bees across the US; check out the website at usnativebees.com
- The lab has received support from the California Conservation Genomics Consortium to sequence genomes of B. crotchii, B. sonorus, and B. vosnesenskii
- The lab has received support from APHIS to continue studying wild bumble bee populations across California
- The lab has received its first NSF grant (🙌🏻) to study how floral food resources impact early nesting success in wild bumble bee queens in the Sierra Nevada Mountains
- Congrats to Blanca Ortega for receiving a Charles Turner Award from the Animal Behavior Society!
- Congrats to Natalie for receiving a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid-of-Research!
- Congrats to Christie Miranda for receiving the Academic Senate 2020 Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement!
- Congrats to our brilliant undergrads Christie, Blanca, and Yadira for receiving their degrees from UCR - we are so proud and we are going to miss all of you so much.
- Congrats to Kaleigh for receiving a Prof. Rahamimoff Travel Grant to visit Guy Bloch's lab in Israel (date tbd due to covid)
- New lab paper out in Molecular Ecology (led by postdoc Claudinéia Costa) on how sugar diet impacts fat body gene expression in bumble bee queens - read it here.
- New paper out on body size in bees (led by Guy Bloch's lab) - read it here.
- Congrats to postdoc Claudinéia for her acceptance into the upcoming Insect Genetic Technologies RCN's Technical Short Course 💜
- New lab paper out (led by Kristal and Michelle) on how pollen diet impacts brood development in young nests - read it here.
- Congrats to grad students Kaleigh Fisher and Erica Sarro for receiving NRS Mildred E. Mathias Graduate Research Grants to support their research in the Sierras and Coastal Range this summer!
- Congrats to grad student Natalie Fischer for receiving a graduate fellowship from RMBL to do some collaborative work with the CaraDonna lab there this summer!
- The lab has welcomed Sandara Brasil, a Fulbright Scholar doing her PhD at the Federal University of Ceará who will be working on carpenter bees and arctic bumble bees.
- Hollis was interviewed by Insectes Sociaux - read it here.
- The lab has welcomed a new undergraduate researcher and PERSIST/RISE Scholar, Gina Zhuo.
- Alex Brinkley received a RISE Scholarship from UCR to work in the lab this summer - congratulations, Alex!
- Congratulations Natalie for receiving an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and Erica for receiving Honorable Mention!
- Natalie and Erica both received graduate fellowships through UCR's NSF-funded National Research Traineeship in Integrated Computational Entomology!
- Congratulations to Christie for getting accepted to UCR and our Mentoring Summer Research Internship Program!
- Hollis was featured on KQED's California Report - listen here.
- Congratulations to Natalie for receiving a 2017-18 NRS Mildred E. Mathias Graduate Research Grant to work in the Sierras next summer. Go Nat!
- Hollis and Co-PI Naoki Yamanaka received funding from the USDA's Foundational Program to support their work on bumble bee caste determination.
- Hollis and Co-PI Will Grover received funding from the Frank G. and Janice B. Delfino Agricultural Technology Research Initiative to support their work on manipulating bumble bee larval development.
- Congratulations to Mauricio for his acceptance into the NIH-funded MARC U STAR Trainee Program!
- Mauricio and Christie received Travel Scholarships from the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science to attend the 2017 Diversity in STEM meeting and present their work!
- Hollis has a new Current Opinion in Insect Science paper out on bumble bee ecophysiology - read it here.
- Hollis has a new Current Opinion in Insect Science paper out with Shalene Jha on how floral resources drive bee population dynamics and pollination services - read it here.
- This summer the Woodard lab will be hosting students who are funded by UCR's RISE, NSF-funded Computational Entomology REU, and NIH-funded MARC U STAR Programs. We're ready for summer fun!
- Congratulations to Mauricio for his acceptance into the NIH-funded MARC U STAR Summer Pretrainee Program!
- Congratulations to Kristal for receiving a Peer-to-Peer Training Fellowship from the NSF-Funded Insect Genetic Technologies RCN to work in Omar Akbari's lab on developing CRISPR in bumble bees!
- Congratulations to Kaleigh on the publication of her first first-author paper (from her MS): Floral resource availability from groundcover promotes bee abundance in coffee agroecosystems.
- Congratulation to Nat and Mauricio for their excellent poster presentations at UCR's Undergraduate Research Symposium.
- Happy to announce that Natalie Fischer and Erica Sarro will be joining the Woodard lab to begin PhDs in Entomology in fall 2017!
- Congratulations to Natalie for receiving a 2017 Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Undergrad Research (only given to two graduating seniors per year!)
- Congratulations to Natalie for receiving the 2017 Hasegawa Memorial Fund (from UCR's CNAS) to help advance California agriculture - way to go Nat!
- Congratulations to Alex for receiving a 2017 Bernarr J. Hall Agricultural Scholarship (from UCR's CNAS) to help advance California agriculture - way to go Alex!
- Congratulations to Natalie for giving her first invited talk at this year's PBESA meeting in Portland - great job, Nat!
- Hollis was featured on Public Radio International's Science Friday talking about bees and superblooms!
- Kaleigh and Michelle are off to attend the UCLA/La Kretz Workshop in Conservation Genomics - have fun you two!
- Congratulations to Mauricio Flores for receiving a CNAS Mini Grant to study insulin in bumble bees!
- Congratulations to Natalie for receiving an Honorable Mention on her NSF GRFP application - way to go, Nat!
- Congratulations to Hollis for winning the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America's Excellence in Early Career Award!
- The lab welcomes a special visitor: Dr. María del Mar Leza Salord from the University of the Balearic Islands, who will working on a collaborative project on bumble bee queens - glad to have you in the lab, Mar!
- Congratulations to Michelle Duennes for receiving a USDA NIFA Postdoctoral Fellowship to study bumble bee nutritional ecology and conservation!
- We are very excited to have three new undergraduate researchers joining the lab: Alex Vanecek, Jade Bratu, and Stephanie Reimer, who will be working on Arctic and temperate bumble bees.
- Congratulations to Natalie for receiving a CNAS Mini Grant for her work on buzz pollination!
- Congratulations to Kristal for receiving a 2016 Alan Romspert Grant in Desert Botany from the Southern California Botanists for her work on Krameria!
- Congratulations to Mauricio for his acceptance into UCR's Medical Scholars Program!
- New paper out by lab postdoc Michelle Duennes on Mesoamerican bumble bees, from her PhD research.
- We are very excited to have a new undergraduate researcher in the lab: Rebecca Moon, who will be working with our Arctic bees.
- Our research on Arctic bumble bees was featured in the New York Times' Science section, and this narrated video slideshow.
- Congratulations to Mauricio for receiving a 2016-2017 research internship in data science through the Fellowships and Internships in Extremely Large Datasets (FIELDS) program!
- Our first graduate student (Kaleigh Fisher) joins the lab!
- Our research on Arctic bumble bees was highlighted in this UCR-produced video.
- Michelle Duennes has been chosen as a 2016 ESA Science Policy Fellow!
- Our research on Arctic bumble bees was featured on phys.org and will be highlighted soon in the New York Times. Watch Jim Gorman interview Dr. Woodard in this New York Times - Science live video.
- Michelle Duennes received research funding from the Arctic Institute of North America!
- Natalie Fischer and Maurico Flores have received REU funding through the UCR Research Experiences in Integrated Computational Entomology Program!