FSUCML Lecture Series – Sherrie Lynch

“What we should know but don’t about native bees”

Sherri Lynch is a Ph.D. Candidate in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Florida (UF). She is currently employed as a Graduate Research Assistant at the North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy and is responsible for the identification, curation and cataloging of all bees collected in current research conducted by Dr. Isaac Esquivel of UF. She is the melittologist affiliated with the Alabama Listed Plant Insect Network (ALPIN) and is continuing to work on the publication on the Bees of Alabama. Her love for bees began at an early age and has continued in her research of bees throughout her graduate studies, focusing on Heserapis oraria, the Gulf Coast Evening Bee. This native, endemic bee occurs only along the coastal dunes of the northern Gulf and is only available to study for approximately three weeks each year in the fall. She has studied the phenological relationship between the bee and its sole floral host, Balduina angustifolia, its movement throughout the landscape, and how to train volunteers, park staff, and students to monitor the bee during its short flight period. Upon graduation, she hopes to continue conducting bee surveys, educating the public about all bees, and training community scientists about native bee monitoring and ecology to uniquely contribute to useful long-term data sets within the bee research community.

This lecture will speak to the importance of learning and appreciating the natural history, behaviors, and conservation of native bees with an emphasis on the bees in the U.S. Southeast and North Florida.