Insect Pollinators and Confection Sunflowers with Dr. Rachel Mallinger

Field, Lab, Earth

“Benefits of Insect Pollination to Confection Sunflowers Differ Across Plant Genotypes” with Dr. Rachel Mallinger. Sunflowers are a hallmark of an American summer. They’re grown for beauty, but they are also important industrial crops in America, grown for sunflower oil, for fresh eating (of the seeds), and for bird seed. And although we’ve slowly bred them to be more independent of pollinators, sunflowers still partner with bees. And not just honey bees. More often, they partner with native bees. Did you know honey bees aren’t even native to the U.S.? And while just as charismatic in their own way, native bees might not fit the usual description of a bee that we imagine. Most U.S. bees don’t have a colony, don’t have a queen, and don’t have a hive that sits in a tree. And yet these mostly underground, solitary dwellers are the ones that are so important for sunflowers (and many flowers). Dr. Mallinger’s research looks at the fascinating relationship between these species – the confection sunflower and native bees. She wants to be able to measure this relationship. How do sunflowers benefit from pollination by bees? Tune in to learn more about Dr. Mallinger’s research and to find answers to these questions: • What are the differences between a honey bee and a native bee? • Why should we care about native bees? • What is Dr. Mallinger’s favorite type of bee? • How does pollination increase the yield of sunflowers? If you would like more information about this topic, today’s paper is available here: https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/cs/abstracts/57/6/3264 It will be freely available from 20 July to 3 August, 2018. If you would like to find transcripts for this episode or sign up for our newsletter, please visit our website: https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/podcast Contact us at [e-mail] or on Twitter @FieldLabEarth if you have comments, questions, or suggestions for show topics, and if you want more content like this don’t forget to subscribe. If you would like to reach out to Rachel, you can find her here: [e-mail] www.rachelmallinger.com www.twitter.com/remallinger Resources: Xerces Society: https://xerces.org/ Pollinator Partnership: http://pollinator.org/ The Great Sunflower Project: https://www.greatsunflower.org/ Rachel’s lab: www.rachelmallinger.com Bee Identification: http://beesinyourbackyard.blogspot.com/p/poster.html Bee Identification Book: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10593.html