Kate LeCroy is an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department and the Environmental Studies and Sciences Program. In partnership with Rhodes undergraduate researchers and community scientists, Prof. LeCroy studies the ecology of native and introduced solitary bees, including their health outcomes across urban, agricultural, and natural landscapes. Prof. LeCroy received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia documenting native bee species declines and elucidating drivers of bee species losses. She further studied the fungal diseases of these bee species as a USDA NIFA AFRI postdoctoral research fellow at Cornell University.
In addition to mentoring student researchers, Prof. LeCroy also serves as an instructor for introductory courses such as introductory organismal biology (BIOL 140) and introduction to environmental sciences with lab (BIOL 120/120L), as well as teaching advanced biology courses such as conservation biology with lab (BIOL 320/320L). She also teaches a course series for the public (“How do we Save the Bees?”) with the Meeman Center for Lifelong Learning
Research Background:
With over 20,000 bee species described worldwide, bees are a diverse and widely distributed group that pollinate flowering plants, including crop plants. In virtually all bee species, larvae consume a diet of pollen combined with nectar or floral oils, and thus flowering plants have played a significant role in shaping the evolutionary history of bees. Bees vary extensively in the range of host plants from which they are capable of collecting pollen: many bee species collect floral resources from only one plant family or a few closely-related groups, whereas other bee species are capable of collecting pollen from a diverse assortment of relatively unrelated plant groups.
A tractable and naturally occurring system to study the diversity of pollen use can be found inside the nests of solitary cavity-nesting bees. Within each bee nest chamber are mass food provisions made of pollen and regurgitated nectar that are assembled by a female bee to feed a single offspring. The nest also contains microbes that are associated with the pollen and regurgitated nectar. Because cavity-nesting bees regularly reuse old nest sites, the pathogen load and diversity can also be high. To survive, the bee larva must hatch and develop among this landscape of food, microbial interactions, and diverse pathogens, yet little is known about how pollen, microbial and pathogen interactions influence solitary bee health. With the assistance of Rhodes undergraduate student researchers and in partnership with community scientists, we explore the diversity of wild bee pollen diets and disease susceptibility over gradients of environmental change.
Wild Bee Lab Instagram: http://instagram.com/beesyall
Wild Bee Research Team Information: https://linktr.ee/beesyall
Selected Publications (Google Scholar profile):
LeCroy, K. A., Krichilsky, E., Grab, H. L., Roulston, T. H., & Danforth, B. N. (2023). Spillover of chalkbrood fungi to native solitary bee species from non‐native congeners. Journal of Applied Ecology, 1365-2664.14399.
Gutierrez, Grace M., LeCroy, K.A., Roulston, T. H., Biddinger, D. J., & López-Uribe, M. M. Osmia taurus: A new non-native species with invasiveness potential in North America. Environmental Entomology, nvad005.
Russo, L., de Keyzer, C. W., Harmon-Threatt, A. N., LeCroy, K. A., and MacIvor, J. S. (2021). The managed-to-invasive species continuum in social and solitary bees and impacts on native bee conservation. Curr Opin Insect Sci 46, 43–49. doi: 10.1016/j.cois.2021.01.001.
LeCroy, K. A., Arceo-Gómez, G., Koski, M. H., Morehouse, N. I., and Ashman, T.-L. (2021). Floral Color Properties of Serpentine Seep Assemblages Depend on Community Size and Species Richness. Frontiers in Plant Science 11, 2107. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.602951.
LeCroy, K. A., Savoy-Burke, G., Carr, D. E., Delaney, D. A., and Roulston, T. H. (2020). Decline of six native mason bee species following the arrival of an exotic congener. Sci Rep 10, 18745. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-75566-9. Scientific Reports 2020 Top 100 Papers in Ecology
VanZandt, P. A., Johnson, D. D., Hartley, C., LeCroy, K. A., Shew, H. W., Davis, B. T., et al. (2020). Which moths might be pollinators? Approaches in the search for the flower‐visiting needles in the Lepidopteran haystack. Ecological Entomology. doi: 10.1111/een.12782.
Carr, D. E., Haber, A. I., LeCroy, K. A., Lee, D. E., and Link, R. I. (2015). Variation in reward quality and pollinator attraction: the consumer does not always get it right. AoB PLANTS 7. doi: 10.1093/aobpla/plv034.
Koski, M. H., Meindl, G. A., Arceo-Gómez, G., Wolowski, M., LeCroy, K. A., and Ashman, T.-L. (2015). Plant–flower visitor networks in a serpentine metacommunity: assessing traits associated with keystone plant species. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 9, 9–21. doi: 10.1007/s11829-014-9353-9.
