John M Mola, Ph.D. (Former Employee)

The acute decline in global biodiversity includes not only the loss of rare species, but also the rapid collapse of common species across many different taxa. The loss of pollinating insects is of particular concern because of the ecological and economic values these species provide. The western bumble bee (Bombus occidentalis) was once common in western North America, but this species...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service developed national guidelines to track species recovery of the endangered rusty patched bumble bee [Bombus affinis Cresson (Hymenoptera: Apidae)] and to investigate changes in species occupancy across space and time. As with other native bee monitoring efforts, managers have specifically acknowledged the need to address species detection uncertainty and...

Declines of many bumble bee species have raised concerns because of their importance as pollinators and potential harbingers of declines among other insect taxa. At present, bumble bee conservation is predominantly focused on midsummer flower restoration in open habitats. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that forests may play an important role in bumble bee life history...

Populations of bumble bees and other pollinators have declined over the past several decades due to numerous threats, including habitat loss and degradation. However, we can rarely investigate the role of resource loss due to a lack of detailed long‐term records of forage plants and habitats.We use 22‐year repeated surveys of more than 262 sites located in grassland, forest, and wetland...

Recent bumble bee declines have prompted the development of novel population monitoring tools, including the use of putatively non-lethal tarsal clipping to obtain genetic material. However, the potential side effects of tarsal clipping have only been tested in the worker caste of a single domesticated species, prompting the need to more broadly test whether tarsal clipping negatively...

1. Fire-induced changes in the abundance and distribution of organisms, especially plants, can alter resource landscapes for mobile consumers driving bottom-up effects on their population sizes, morphologies, and reproductive potential. We expect these impacts to be most striking for obligate visitors of plants, like bees and other pollinators, but these impacts can be difficult to...

1. Understanding the roles of habitat fragmentation and resource availability in shaping animal movement are integral for promoting species persistence and conservation. For insects like bumble bees, their movement patterns affect the survival and reproductive potential of their colonies as well as the pollen flow of plant species. However, our understanding of their mobility or the...