STEM Research Interns are the Buzz on Campus
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April 11, 2019 – Massasoit’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) program hosted its 5th annual STEMposium yesterday to showcase several student-led research projects, which explored the correlation between native pollinator activity (bees) and land-use practices. Follow the link at the bottom of this post to download the full research abstracts.
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“Optimization of Spatial Scale in Local Land-Use Studies” – Matthew Healy
“Our results suggest that rural areas may generally provide better habitat for native bees, but better land management practices may increase abundance and diversity even in urban settings.”
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“The Impact of Land-Use Practices on Ground-Nesting Bees” – Jordan Palmer
“These data suggest that rural sites may provide more resources for ground-nesting bees; however, urban areas with sustainable land-use practices may be beneficial as well.”
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“Urbanization Effects on Ground Nesting and Non-Ground Nesting Bees” – Tatyanna Moreland-Junior
“Correlation strength between both ground and non-ground nesting bee abundance and richness of the two nesting guilds may have predictive value for local ecosystem health and the health of the local bee community.”
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“Does Forest Cover Affect Cavity-nesting Bee Abundance?” – Belunda Moise
“In an urban/sub-urban setting, cavity-nesting bees’ abundance does not seem to have a strong correlation with forest cover, suggesting other factors such as sustainable land-use practices may be more important to help promote their community.”
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“Gender Ratio in Bees as an Indicator of Ecosystem Health” – Vania Lopes
“This suggests that sex ratio may be more sensitive to year-to-year ecosystem variation compared to Osmia abundance.”
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“Changes in Genus Lasioglossum Over Time” – Douglas Phinney
“Using a priori contrast we were able to see that sites with sustainable land use practices in place have significantly higher abundance compared to those without.”
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“Using DNA Barcoding to Study Foraging Habits of Bees” – Zachary Thuotte
“This type of information could be particularly useful in an agricultural setting where interactions between nesting preferences, foraging preferences and crop pollination might be established.”
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“Relationship Between Kleptoparasite Nomada Abundance and its Host Genus’” – Kinga Auguste
“Human activity appears to influence the abundance of Nomada, and variation observed in the strength of the host-parasite relationship suggests that monitoring this marker could yield new insight on the health of the bee community.”