Free public lectures titled "The Global Pollinator Crisis" will take
place on July 20th at 7:00 PM at View in Old Forge. The public is
invited to arrive at 6:00 PM for a reception and the opportunity to
meet Dr. Grozinger, who is an associate professor of entomology at
Penn State and the director of the Penn State Center for Pollinator
Research.
The lecture is part of AdkAction.org’s newest Initiative, the
Adirondack Pollinator Project, which grew out of it’s former Monarch
Project. After years of advocating for monarch conservation and public
education about the incredible species, AdkAction.org decided to
expand the Monarch Project to include all pollinators. Project
partners include The Wild Center, The Lake Placid Land Conservancy,
and Common Ground Gardens.
In her lecture, Grozinger will explain the importance of pollinators
such as bees to agricultural production. She also will describe the
global declines in pollinator populations that have been documented in
recent years and this decline's many causes, which include pesticides,
parasites, viruses, reduced genetic diversity, poor management
practices of managed pollinator populations, and habitat destruction.
She will highlight ongoing research at Penn State, where scientists
are seeking to better understand the impacts of these factors on
pollinator health, and to find solutions that could be implemented
locally, nationally, and globally.
Grozinger has received national and international recognition for her
research. She has presented over 35 invited seminar or symposia
lectures in the last five years, including plenary and keynote
lectures at the 2010 Congress of the International Society for the
Study of Social Insects in Denmark and the 2011 International Society
for the Study of Chemical Ecology conference in Vancouver, Canada. She
has received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career
Development (CAREER) Award and the Penn State Harbaugh Faculty
Scholars Program Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, among
other awards.
