The University of Hawaii Pollinator Ecology Lab

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Dr. Chrissy Mogren received her PhD in Entomology from the University of California, Riverside in 2013. Her dissertation was titled "Outcomes of chronic arsenic exposure in aquatic insects." This novel interdisciplinary study melded the fields of environmental toxicology, insect physiology, insect behavior, and stream ecology. Her first postdoctoral position applied many of these scientific disciplines in a different entomological system: pollinators in heavily monocultured agricultural environments. From 2013-2015 she performed research on the effects of plant-incorporated pesticides in corn (neonicotinoids and RNAi) on honey bees, as well as risk mitigation for honey bees and native bees using conservation strips at the USDA North Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Brookings, South Dakota. From 2015-2017 she expanded upon the physiological aspects of this research in a second postdoctoral position at the Louisiana State University AgCenter in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in collaboration with scientists at the USDA Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Laboratory. Since December 2017, she has been an Assistant Specialist at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in the Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences, with a research and extension emphasis on honey bee health and pollination ecology in Hawaii.

 

Pollinator Publications:

Mogren CL and Shikano I (In Revision) Multitrophic linkages between pollinators and herbivorous insects mediated by plants, microbes, and immunity. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology. 

Mogren CL, Benítez M-S, McCarter K, Boyer F, Lundgren JG (2020) The influence of landscape on diet and physiology in Melissodes desponsa and Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Conservation Physiology, 8: coaa109.

Ing K* and Mogren CL (2020) Evidence of competition between honey bees and Hylaeus anthracinus (Colletidae), an endangered Hawaiian yellow-faced bee. Pacific Science, 74: 75-85.

     *Indicates undergraduate co-author

Corby-Harris V, Bowsher JH, Carr-Markell M, Centrella M, Cook SC, Couvillon M, Dolezal A, Jones J, Mogren CL, Otto CRV, Lau P, Rangel J, Schürch R, St. Clair A. (2019) Emerging themes from the ESA symposium entitled “Pollinator Nutrition: Lessons from Bees at Individual to Landscape Levels.” Bee World, 96: 3-9.

Mogren CL, Danka R, Healy K (2019) Larval pollen stress increases adult susceptibility to clothianidin in honey bees. Insects, 10: 21.

Mogren CL, Margotta J, Danka R, Healy, K (2018) Supplemental carbohydrates influence abiotic stress resistance in honey bees. The Journal of Apicultural Research, 57: 682-689.

Mogren CL, Lundgren JG (2017) In silico identification of off-target pesticidal dsRNA binding in honey bees. PeerJ, 5:e4131.

Mogren CL and Lundgren JG (2016) Neonicotinoid-contaminated pollinator strips adjacent to cropland reduce honey bee nutritional status. Scientific Reports, 6: 29608.

Mogren CL, Rand TA, Fausti SW, Lundgren JG (2016) The effects of crop intensification on the diversity of native pollinator communities. Environmental Entomology, 45: 865-872.

Other Publications:

Mogren CL, Walton WE, Trumble JT (2014) Tolerance to individual and joint effects of arsenic and Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis or Lysinibacillus sphaericus in Culex mosquitoes. Insect Science, 21: 477-485.

Mogren CL, Walton WE, Parker DR, Trumble JT (2013) Trophic transfer of arsenic from an aquatic insect to terrestrial insect predators. PLoS One, 8: e67817.

Mogren CL, Webb SM, Walton WE, Trumble JT (2013) Micro x-ray absorption spectroscopic analysis of arsenic localization and biotransformation in Chironomus riparius Meigen (Diptera: Chironomidae) and Culex tarsalis Coquillett (Culicidae). Environmental Pollution, 180: 78-83.

Mogren CL, von Kiparski GR, Parker DR, Trumble JT (2012) Survival, reproduction, and arsenic body burdens in Chironomus riparius exposed to arsenate and phosphate. Science of the Total Environment, 425: 60-65.

Mogren CL and Trumble JT (2010) The impacts of metals and metalloids on insect behavior. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, 135: 1-17.

  • Current Students
  • Former Students

IMG-4835Daniel Hausler is pursuing his M.S. in Entomology with his these is titled "Dietary effects of Prosopis pallida (common kiawe) pollen on Apis mellifera (European honey bee) health and colony strength in Hawaii." Specifically, his research will identify the pollen collected by honey bees in environments dominated by kiawe trees on Oahu and Maui, quantify the macronutrients of bee-collected pollen to evaluate how they change through time, and assess how pollen diversity impacts individual bee and colony health. 

Publications:

Undergraduates

Haley Zielomski assisted with Dr. Mogren's ongoing research on which native and introduced plant species are preferred forage plants for honey bees on Kauai by processing samples during the spring and summer of 2020.

 

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UH students Caitlin Wright and Eve Berlinsky assisted with Dr. Mogren's ongoing research on which native and introduced plant species are preferred forage plants for honey bees on Kauai. They processed pollen samples, helped with methods development, and assisted with laboratory analysis of total protein and lipids during the summer of 2019. 

 

 

 

Keilyn at Ka Iwi shoreline collecting dataKeilyn Ing, a Hawaii native who graduated from Santa Clara University in 2019, completed a directed research project on Hawaiian yellow-faced bees during the summer of 2018. She was interested in learning about how an endangered species, Hylaeus anthracinus, was impacted by potential competition with honey bees along its coastal habitat at the Ka Iwi State Scenic Shoreline on Oahu. She designed the experiments, collected data in the field, analyzed the data, and contributed to writing the final manuscript.

Publication: Ing K and Mogren CL (2020) Evidence of competition between honey bees and Hylaeus anthracinus (Colletidae), an endangered Hawaiian yellow-faced bee. Pacific Science, 74: 75-85.