James Crall

Pesticide exposure and bee colony health

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Bees provide vital pollination services in both natural and agricultural ecosystems. In addition to impacting biodiversity, declines in pollinator populations pose a direct threat to food security and human nutrition. I'm interested in developing tools behavioral tracking tools in bees that can both help us understand the precise mechanisms by which pesticide-exposure impacts the behavior of bees,  as well as providing more efficient and cost-effective screening for the environmental safety of pesticides. 

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Recently, I've developed an automated, robotic platform for monitoring behavior in multiple bee colonies around the clock, and used this system to show the low-level, chronic exposure to neonicotinoid pesticides disrupts an array of behaviors in bumblebee colonies, including activity, spatial dynamics, and social interactions