BeeCon 2025 - BEEc - Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation

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Full Program with Abstracts

Two Page Schedule at a Glance

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Jessica Forrest

Jessica Forrest, Professor,
Department of Biology, University of Ottawa.

Jessica Forrest is a Full Professor in the Biology Department at the University of Ottawa, where she has been based since 2013. For her PhD, she worked with James Thomson (at the University of Toronto), who introduced her to RMBL (the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory), and she spent two years as a postdoc in Neal William's lab at the University of California-Davis. Her research focuses on the ecology and evolutionary biology of wild bees, particularly in the context of environmental change. For many years, Jessica conducted field work at RMBL, in Gothic, Colorado; but the lab is now concentrating on the bees in the agricultural areas and natural habitats around Ottawa.

Short Talk Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change is proceeding with a speed and ferocity that threaten natural ecosystems and many aspects of human culture. Climate affects wild bee populations, too; yet the stories that are told about climate change impacts on bees aren't always grounded in strong evidence. In this talk, I will present some results from a decade of work on pollen-specialist bees in the southwestern USA - species that we expected to be vulnerable to climate-driven shifts in phenology and floral availability - and discuss the ways in which these bees are, and are not, threatened by climate change. I'll also try to make sense of how our findings fit with research on other bee populations around the world.

Learn more about past BeeCon Events here.