Insect pollinator nutritional & behavioral ecology
One of the perks of doing fieldwork in Westerly is working with talented locals! This year, Anna from Shutter in a Compass Photography joined us in the field for a lab photoshoot. Thanks to Anna for being a great sport, and not shying away from a hike and some time in the sun!
This year, our annual Pollinator Safari in collaboration with Westerly Land Trust took place as part of their Farm Squad program at Barlow Nature Preserve. We were joined by twenty 5-10 year-old nature enthusiasts in search of flower-visiting insects. Safari Report & Species List This year, we had a gorgeous sunny day for the safari. We observed […]
This list of flowers is a supplement to my poster for the International Society for Behavioral Ecology Congress 2024, but all are free to peruse! This is a complete list of flowers that bloom in our 53 sample quadrats (1m x 1m) across five gardens on the Providence College camps, it is by no means […]
This July, the Bonoan Lab returned to Westerly Land Trust’s Avondale Farm Preserve for our third Pollinator Safari! This year, we were joined by the URI Bee Lab and RI DEM’s Pollinator Atlas Entomologist. Learn more about our past Pollinator Safaris (and the news coverage!) by clicking here. Safari Report & Species List Despite the […]
“For much of the year, except now, if Rachael Bonoan isn’t in a classroom or in her office, there’s a good chance the assistant professor of biology at Providence College is roaming the 150-acre campus searching for bugs. Pollinators to be precise.“ Read about my pollinator research at Providence College and what you can do […]
Read about how my Providence College colleague, James Waters, and I are using community science in our research and teaching in the recent ecoRI news article, ‘Pokémon in Real Life’: How One App Helps Experts and Amateurs Cast Wider Net Into Natural World. Read the article by clicking here.
Post written by Kaitlyn Bresnahan (Providence College ’25) Kaitlyn, a Biology major and a French minor, was awarded a Robert H. Walsh Student Research Fellowship to support her summer research on campus. She wrote this essay for the Fall 2023 issue of Providence College Magazine. The article was originally posted online here. Campus in the […]
Last summer, Kaitlyn Bresnahan (Providence College student who also happens to be a beekeeper!) sampled bees of various castes and ages from her own hives in Cape Cod, MA. During the fall, Kaitlyn ran nutritional analyses for carbon and nitrogen content of each type of bee to see which bees might be more “expensive” to […]
This June, the Bonoan Lab was lucky enough to be invited back to Westerly Land Trust’s Avondale Farm Preserve for our second Pollinator Safari! Learn more about last year’s Pollinator Safari (and the news coverage!) by clicking here. Safari Report & Species List Again, we observed over 20 flower-visiting insects, all within less than a […]
Join us at Westerly Land Trust’s Barlow Nature Center (Westerly, RI) to hear about the research my lab is working on, learn how to identify green bees, taste some honey, and pick up some Pollinator Lab swag! Date: Thursday, November 17Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm The event is open to the public but online […]
Providence Pollinator Lab 