Plant-Pollinator-Herbivore Interactions
I am interested in the influence of herbivory on plant pollinator interactions. While there has been significant research done on the topic in the last decade, we still lack some basic information about how plants balance protection from herbivory with attraction of pollinators and how pollinators react to this plant stimulus.
Plant-Pollinator-Predator Interactions
The influence of predators on pollinators has been studied for a while now, but the details about these interactions are still unknown. For example, presence of floral predators is known to dissuade pollinators from visiting certain flowers, but it is still unknown how this impacts plant fitness and pollinator foraging generally. Will pollinators avoid the plant altogether? Will they begin to associate that species of flower with predation risk? Are some floral predators also pollinators? How strongly do floral predators influence plant fitness generally? These questions present a large gap in our knowledge about how pollination interactions react to the rest of the ecosystem.
Non-Traditional Pollinators
A lot of the public's attention when considering pollination is taken up by honey bees and monarch butterflies. While these two species do provide some important pollination services, other species have gone unrecognized when it comes to the amount of pollination they do and where they fit in the ecosystem as a whole. I am interested in understanding how the more neglected pollinators, such as flies, beetles, wild and native bees, and moths, are interacting with plants in the pollination process.