MSU College of Ag to Host Pollinator Symposium

BOZEMAN — The Montana State University Pollinator Health Center will host its annual Pollinator Symposium on Thursday, April 21, on MSU’s campus. The event will take place 6 to 9 p.m. in Inspiration Hall inside Norm Asbjornson Hall. It is free and open to the public.

The symposium will include brief presentations by MSU graduate students and faculty experts on bees and butterflies. There will also be a Q&A session with local bee experts.

“The Pollinator Symposium is a great opportunity for the MSU and Bozeman communities to gain an understanding of our ongoing research into improving bee health and the importance of plant pollinators in both agricultural and natural landscapes,” said Michelle Flenniken, associate professor in the Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology in the College of Agriculture.

The symposium will conclude with a showing of the documentary “The Pollinators.” The film follows migratory beekeepers in the United States and their truckloads of honey bees as they pollinate plants that produce fruit, nut and vegetable crops. The film emphasizes the crucial role bees and the challenges beekeepers face in maintaining bees within large-scale agricultural systems.

MSU's Pollinator Health Center brings together faculty from disciplines across MSU as well as expertise from federal and state agencies to examine topics including plant-pollinator biodiversity and ecosystem functionality, the mechanisms of pollinator host-pathogen interactions, pollinator losses and pollinator conservation. Flenniken co-directs the center with Laura Burkle, who is in the Department of Ecology in MSU's College of Letters and Science.

For more information contact Flenniken at  michelle.flenniken@montana.edu.

- by MSU News Service -