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Video: Bees at the Wilds

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9I34dmCQ6E

Check out this very cool video about Karen Goodell's research on plant/pollinator interactons, specifically the bee population in an Ohio conservation center on reclaimed strip-mine land. Dr. Goodell is a professor at my old graduate school department at OSU. You can read more about her research in the campus faculty/staff newspaper.

From the feature on OSU's website:


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Karen Goodell has a fact that might surprise you: "About 70 percent of flowering plants, including one in three bites of food we eat, require pollination by a bee."

Goodell, a professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at Ohio State's Newark campus, is interested in bee populations. At the Wilds--a southern Ohio conservation center located on reclaimed strip mine land--she is studying the relationship between bee communities and prairie habitats.

"Bees are really the organisms that are moving genes around for plants," she says. "Pollinators are absolutely essential for agricultural production. We need to understand what makes their populations thrive."

Goodell’s two projects use 72 different locations dispersed around the Wilds; Ohio State students help her collect data.

"Being a freshman and getting an internship is amazing," says Stephany Chicaiza, who spent the summer after her first year at Ohio State working with Goodell. "I think it puts me at a different level."

"Life creates [the Force], makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter," Yoda explains in The Empire Strikes Back, gesturing to Luke's physical body. This quote is striking because of the apt juxtaposition of the wonder of life with its often disgusting vessel. Like many other animals, we secrete, excrete, expectorate, defecate, flatulate, regurgitate, urinate, circulate, masticate, menstruate, ejaculate, and ventilate. We are filled with gas and feces and blood and guts and mucus and any number of rude things. Life as we know it is possible because of the countless impolite things we do every day. Are we luminous beings? Perhaps, but that's neither here nor there. This blog is about the crude matter that keeps us alive.

Michelle Clement has a B.Sc. in zoology (with a minor in American culture studies) and a M.Sc. in organismal biology from The Ohio State University. Her thesis research was on the ecophysiology of epidermal lipids and water homeostasis in house sparrows. She now works as a technical editor for The American Chemical Society. Her broader interests include weird human and animal physiology, obesity and enteric physiology, endocrinology, sexual and reproductive health, personal genomics, anthropology (physical and cultural), sociology, and science education and communication. She lives in Ohio with her boyfriend and two cats.

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