Jan. 16, 2013
Williams, assistant professor of entomology, is the co-project director of Aspire Project: Augmenting Specialty Crop Pollination Through Integrated Research and Education for Bees, a coordinated agricultural project funded by SCRI. Williams serves as the project leader for habitat enhancement for bees and as a co-leader of a project seeking alternative managed bees for almonds.
The meeting will be the first “all-hands-on-deck” meeting to discuss plans for the first field season; to coordinate collection and curation techniques; and to obtain feedback from the Advisory Committee Tentative Plan.
Rufus Isaacs, Extension specialist for berry crops, entomology, at Michigan State University, Lansing, Mich., directs the Aspire Project for Bees and is the principal investigator of the $1.6 million grant. (See news release.)
In addition to Williams, the co-project directors are
- Theresa Pitts-Singer, research entomologist, USDA-ARS Pollinating Insects Research Unit, Department of Biology, Logan, Utah;
- Mace Vaughan, pollinator program director, Xerces Society, Portland, Ore; and
- Mark Lubell, Sociology of Sustainability, UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy.
“Our long-term goal is to develop and deliver context-specific Integrated Crop Pollination (ICP) recommendations on how to most effectively harness the potential of native bees for crop pollination,” says Isaacs on the Aspire website. “We define ICP as: the combined use of different pollinator species, habitat augmentation, and crop management practices to provide reliable and economical pollination of crops. This approach is analogous to Integrated Pest Management in that we aim to provide decision-support tools to reduce risk and improve returns through the use of multiple tactics tailored to specific crops and situations. By developing context-specific ICP programs, this project will improve sustainability of U.S. specialty crops and thereby help ensure the continued ability of growers to reap profitable returns from their investments in land, plants, and other production inputs.”
The project objectives are five-fold:
1. to identify economically valuable pollinators and the factors affecting their abundance.
2. to develop habitat management practices to improve crop pollination.
3. to determine performance of alternative managed bees as specialty crop pollinators.
4. to demonstrate and deliver ICP practices for specialty crops.
5. to determine optimal methods for ICP information delivery and measure ICP adoption
Key Personnel
Key personnel for the Aspire program are
Jamie Ellis, honey bee research and Extension. Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of Florida. Gainesville, Fla.
Karen Klonsky, Cooperative Extension specialist, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis
Shelby Fleischer, vegetable entomology Extension specialist for vegetable entomology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Penn.
Claire Kremen, pollination ecologist, UC Berkeley
Taylor Ricketts, Mapping Pollination Services, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. University of Vermont. Burlington, Vermont.
Eric Lonsdorf, Mapping Pollination Services, Chicago Botanic Garden, Glenco, Ill.
David Biddinger, biocontrol and pollination specialist, Penn State University. Fruit Research and Extension Center, Biglerville, Penn.
Julianna Tuell, tree fruit integrator, Michigan State University Department of Entomology, East Lansing, Mich.
Rachael Winfree, pollination ecologist, Rutgers University Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources, New Brunswick, N.J.
Nikki Rothwell, Extension horticulturalist, Michigan State University's NW Michigan Horticultural Research Station, Traverse City, Mich.
Larry Gut, Extension specialist for tree fruit entomology, Michigan State University Department of Entomology. East Lansing, Mich.
Jaret Daniels, entomologist, University of Florida Department of Entomology and Nematology, Gainesville, Fla.
Sujaya Rao, entomologist, Oregon State University Department of Crop and Soil Science, Corvallis, Ore.
Eric Mader, Assistant Pollinator Program director, The Xerces Society, Portland, Ore.
Stephen Peterson, entomologist, AgPollen LLC, Waterford, Calif.
Jim Cane, research entomologist, USDA-ARS Pollinating Insects Research Unit, Department of Biology, Utah State University, Logan, Utah
James Strange, research entomologist, USDA-ARS Pollinating Insects Research Unit, Department of Biology, Utah State University, Logan, Utah
Bob Gillespie, Wenatchee (Wash.) Valley College Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Elizabeth Elle, Simon Fraser University Department of Biological Sciences. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894