Rufus Isaacs and team work to protect bees and pollinators

It's been four years since MSU entomologist Rufus Isaacs and his team set out to find methods that could help growers ensure their crops were pollinated in the face of rising threats to traditional honey bee colonies.

It’s been four years since MSU entomologist Rufus Isaacs and his team set out to find methods that could help growers ensure their crops were pollinated in the face of rising threats to traditional honey bee colonies. They've since made discoveries to help preserve, protect and educate people on the issue.

The $8.6 million U.S. Department of Agriculture funded project called the Integrated Crop Pollination project unites 50 scientists from 15 institutions to identify and explore the viability of using native and wild bee species as additional, alternative pollination strategies. Together, they are endeavoring to provide fruit, nut and vegetable crop growers around the country with a more comprehensive set of pollination options to implement on farms.

Isaacs said the researchers have found that while honey bee pollination through human-managed colonies remains a critical component of crop production systems, many common wild bee species also play a role in producing healthy crop yields.

“We have made good progress toward the project goals,” Isaacs said. “Our team has been bringing data together from across the United States to explore where ecological models estimate wild pollinator abundance to be high and where it is estimated to be low, and we overlay that with the regions where demand for pollinators is changing. This has highlighted the regions of the country where greater investment in pollinator habitat might be focused to support these bees.”

To read more about the progress of Isaacs’ pollination work, read the MSU Today story: Pollination Progress: MSU Researchers Work to Protect Bees.

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