Lauren C. Ponisio
My research program focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which species interactions maintain species diversity, and how we can harness these processes to manage and restore diversity in human-modified systems. I focus on pollinators because they are critical for pollination in managed and natural plant communities, but my research is broadly applicable across ecological interactions. My aim is to discover new insights into how communities form, evolve, and persist through time and space, aiding in the prediction and prevention of community collapse. I combine modeling, synthesis and field-based work, and adhere to the principles of reproducible, open
science. In addition, my personal connection to issues concerning agriculture sustainability as a native of the Central Valley and Latina woman has motivated me to study how to design agricultural systems to better support humans and wildlife. I have investigated strategies for designing agricultural systems to promote biodiversity conservation and the links between conservation strategies and improving livelihoods. Beyond promoting biological diversity, my second mission in life is to increase human diversity in the sciences. Because people draw upon their life experiences to inform their science, a diversity of backgrounds is necessary to promote the advancement of science. |
Contact:
lponisio@ucr.edu Office/address: Address: 282 Entomology Building, Riverside, CA 92521 Github Google scholar Orcid ID: 0000-0002-3838-7357 Impactstory CV 
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Marília P. Gaiarsa
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Post-doctoral scholar
Marilia is a community ecologist from Brazil and interested in understanding the intrinsic organization of biological communities and the role of species interactions play in both the maintenance and persistence of biodiversity. During her PhD, at Universidade de Sao Paulo, she explored the ecological consequences of cascading effects in mutualistic networks, using computer simulations and empirical data to assess the relationship between the structure of ecological networks and their robustness to cascading effects. As a member of the Ponisio lab, she will focus specifically on plant-pollinator interactions at the individual scale, and how these patterns translate to the network scale and affect ecosystem function and community resilience. |
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Hamutahl Cohen
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Post-doctoral scholar
Hamutahl received her Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz in Environmental Studies. Her research is motivated by the fact that bees are dying. Bees pollinate important crops in California’s farms and gardens, and agricultural landscapes, in turn, provision resources for bees: pollen and nectar for food and materials and ground substrate for nesting habitat. Through resource provisioning, landscape context impacts bee health: those bees with access to food and habitat are healthier. But landscape context also has epidemiological importance for bees. As a bee forages across landscapes for food, it acquires pollen and nectar-vectored beneficial and pathogenic microorganisms. Her research therefore addresses how variation in floral resources influences bee health. She works in both urban and rural systems with wild and domesticated bees to assess how management and landscape context influence bee-microbe and bee-pathogen interactions. She relies on a combination of field experiments and molecular techniques and to conduct research. In the Ponisio lab she is learning how to apply ecological network analyses to understand the distribution of parasites in wild bees and how this is impacted by both functional traits of different bee species but also by habitat management. |
Contact:
hamutahlc@gmail.com 
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Jennie Durant
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Post-doctoral scholar
Jennie is a social scientist interested in agrifood systems, with a focus on transitions to diversified farming and socially just food production. Jennie received her PhD at University of California, Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, and an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Saint Mary’s College of California. Her cross-disciplinary research focuses on agrifood systems at national and global scales, and draws from geography, rural sociology, and environmental science. Jennie’s current and past research contributes to debates on drivers behind pollinator vulnerability. Her PhD research investigated how commercial beekeepers changed their management practices as the California almond industry–most commercial beekeepers’ primary source of pollination revenue–expanded three-fold from 1990-2016. Her methods included in-depth interviews, surveys, and participant observation, as well as analysis of historical documents and agricultural statistics. In the Ponisio Lab, Jennie is deepening her focus on the almond industry, a bee-dependent crop, by investigating the barriers and incentives to adopting bee-friendly practices on almond orchards through qualitative research and an industry-wide survey. |
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Gordon Smith
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Post-doctoral scholar
I study the causes and consequences of within-species variation in pollinator behavior. Behavior is one of the most plastic and variable responses organisms have to their environment, and differences in an individual's behavior can have large fitness consequences both for that individual and for other species it interacts with. This is especially true in plant-pollinator interactions, as plants rely heavily on mutualistic pollen vectors to reproduce. My research focuses on a number of questions: 1) How much do pollinator individuals vary in their foraging behavior? 2) How this variation is distributed over space and time? 3) What are the drivers underlying this variation? and 4) How does this variation influence the outcomes of these interactions? |
Lauren Gedlinske
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Graduate student
Lauren is a first year PhD student in the Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology program. She is interested in plant-pollinator network assembly after disturbances, and how that information can be leveraged to improve land management strategies for native pollinator conservation. Lauren worked as an environmental educator before becoming a botanist for the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Institute for Applied Ecology. She finally joined the world of "beesearch" when she joined a pollination research lab at Michigan State University. Lauren is a Minnesotan, a Libra, and a Ravenclaw. |
Contact:
lgedl001@ucr.edu 
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Jocelyn Zorn
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Contact: jocelynz@ucr.edu
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Sammy
I am interesting in the processes that drive treat attainment. I did my schooling on the mean streets of Riverside, Ca.
Undergraduate Researchers
Paul Markley
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Paul Markley is a 4th year undergraduate Plant Biology major with concentration in Plant Pathology, Nematology, and Pest Management interested in understanding how plants and pollinators spread spread diseases to each other and other individuals. He became interested in insects after taking a forensic entomology on a whim, and now assists the Ponisio lab in pinning and sorting their insect collection. Paul is currently employed with the George E. Brown USDA ARSSL assisting scientists in maintaining their projects and performing molecular analysis. |
Contact:
pmark002@ucr.edu |
Maxwell Nishimoto
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Max is a 4th year undergraduate Entomology major with a widespread interest in Entomology, Ichthyology and Herpetology. However, after spending several summers in Japan surrounded by giant Vespidae, caring for pet stag beetles and catching Odonata he decided to pursue studies in Entomology in order to explore the diversity of insects and their importance to their respective ecosystems. Max is currently employed at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in the hopes of joining their research program to reintroduce endangered species back into the wild. From there he intends to attend Veterinary School and ultimately become a wildlife veterinarian. |
Contact:
mnish006@ucr.edu |
Allison Nguyen
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Allison Nguyen is a 3rd year undergraduate Plant Biology major. She is interested in understanding the importance of pollinators to the diversity of plants. She currently assists Ponisio Lab in pinning their insect collection. She plans to go to pharmacy school after graduation and also hopes to use her degree in Plant Biology to work in pharmaceutical research discovering new medicines from plants. |
Contact:
anguy147@ucr.edu |
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Collaborators |
Rob Straser
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Rob is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in the Dept. of Entomology at UCR working with Asst. Coop. Extension Specialist, Dr. Houston Wilson. Rob’s current research interests focus on understanding where and under what conditions alternative management strategies in agriculture, such as on-farm habitat diversification initiatives, have the potential to promote the long-term viability of natural enemy populations to benefit both crop yield and financial return on investment.
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Contact:
rstra005@ucr.edu |
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Lab alumni |
