Wild bee pollinator habitat restoration through dietary breadth, nutrition and microbiome characterization across Canada

Wild bees are vital to our parks, gardens, greenspaces and ecosystem services, but we know surprisingly little about their habitat requirements and dietary breadth. In this proposal, we will characterize wild bee nutrition including their health and microbiomes across Canada. The postdoc will learn skills in bioinformatics, science writing and science communication. The W. Garfield Weston Foundation will benefit from furthering their mission to facilitate transformative research on the microbiome that will improve the health of Canadians. With these data, we will determine preferred floral resources and hubs of healthy bacteria to promote habitat restoration and wild bee conservation. We will focus on urban centres to have maximal benefit for the >80% of Canadians living in cities. Taken together these data will provide invaluable open-access resources for bee nutrition, sustainability and long term city planning and conservation efforts.

Faculty Supervisor:

Sandra Rehan

Student:

Katherine Chau

Partner:

Weston Family Microbiome Initiative

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

Other services (except public administration)

University:

York University