Date/Time
Date(s) - 03/25/2021
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

March 25th, 2021: 5:30-7:15pm ET
Dr. Margaret J. Couvillon, Assistant Prof. of Pollinator Biology & Ecology
Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech
Topic: Dancing bees bio-indicate landscape profitability for pollinators

Dr. Margaret J. Couvillon is a broadly trained bee researcher with a particular interest in the foraging and recruitment behaviors of the honey bee. I earned my undergraduate degree from Loyola University in New Orleans (B.S. in Biology, minor in Chemistry) and then spent a year as an AmeriCorps *NCCC volunteer. I completed a M.S. in Neurobiology at Duke University before moving overseas for my Ph.D. with Professor Francis Ratnieks at the University of Sheffield, where I investigated mechanisms of nestmate recognition in honey bees and stingless bees. As a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Anna Dornhaus at the University of Arizona, I investigated proximate and ultimate explanations for worker size variation in the bumble bee Bombus impatiens. For a second postdoc, I rejoined the lab of Francis Ratnieks, now at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England. There I worked to develop the honey bee, in particular its waggle dance communication, as a bioindicator for the “health” of the British landscape.