{"id":91462,"date":"2014-05-13T08:37:48","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T12:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=91462"},"modified":"2015-08-11T15:42:28","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T19:42:28","slug":"a-growing-knowledge-from-plants-to-pollinators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/05\/a-growing-knowledge-from-plants-to-pollinators\/","title":{"rendered":"A Growing Knowledge: From Plants to Pollinators"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was first published in the Spring 2014 print edition of\u00a0<\/em>UConn Magazine<\/a>. To access more stories like this, visit\u00a0s.uconn.edu\/spring 14<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/a> or download\u00a0<\/a><\/em>UConn Magazine’s<\/a> free app<\/a>\u00a0for tablet devices.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Christopher<\/a>
Christopher Martine ’06 Ph.D., left, and Krissa Skogen ’08 Ph.D. collect a sample of pollen from the proboscis of a nocturnal hawkmoth at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, while filming the latest episode of Martine’s web series, ‘Plants Are Cool, Too!’ Both are alumni of UConn’s EEB graduate program. (Photo by Patrick Alexander)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a cover story titled \u201cA World Without Bees,\u201d Time <\/em>magazine this past year addressed the troubling disappearance of honeybees\u00a0\u2013 leading to questions of what it may mean to humankind should bees, bats, moths, and other pollinating animals worldwide continue to face such threats as loss of habitat and pesticide usage.<\/p>\n

What exactly do we know about the planet\u2019s pollinators? As botanist Krissa Skogen \u201908 Ph.D. is quick to point out, \u201cfor most, we know next to nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

An alumna of UConn\u2019s ecology and evolutionary biology doctoral program and a conservation scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden<\/a>, Skogen has dedicated her research to exploring the vital relationships between numerous forms of plant life and the pollinators on which they depend for survival.<\/p>\n

Her research has taken her from the prairies of rural Colorado to the dusky dunes of New Mexico\u2019s White Sands National Monument, and has recently received support from the National Science Foundation\u2019s Dimensions of Biodiversity Program. This past year, Skogen was also featured on the YouTube web series \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d\u00a0\u2013 an educational botany series created and hosted by fellow UConn alumnus Christopher Martine \u201906 Ph.D.<\/p>\n

Through her work, Skogen is beginning to gather answers to a variety of questions, including what role pollinators play in the life cycle of certain plant species. In one research project, she is studying evening primroses and sundrops, many of which are night-blooming wildflowers, and their chief pollinators, hawkmoths, which may travel up to an astonishing 20 miles each night on their quest to collect nectar from these fragrant blossoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cProjects like this help create a baseline knowledge about pollinators\u00a0\u2013 bees, hawkmoths, bats\u00a0\u2013 and help move the field forward and contribute to a greater understanding about plants and the insects that rely on them,\u201d says Skogen, who also serves as an adjunct biology professor at Northwestern University. \u201cOnly through studies like this can we understand how that works, and be able to make predictions about the consequences of loss of plants or loss of pollinators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch Krissa Skogen \u201908 Ph.D. at work at s.uconn.edu\/desertblooms<\/a> on the latest episode of YouTube web series \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!,\u201d an adventure botany series created and hosted by her fellow UConn ecology and evolutionary biology alum Christopher Martine \u201906 Ph.D. To read more about Skogen and Martine, visit s.uconn.edu\/plants<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was first published in the Spring 2014 print edition of\u00a0UConn Magazine. To access more stories like this, visit\u00a0s.uconn.edu\/spring 14 or download\u00a0UConn Magazine’s free app\u00a0for tablet devices. In a cover story titled \u201cA World Without Bees,\u201d Time magazine this past year addressed the troubling disappearance of honeybees\u00a0\u2013 leading to questions of what it may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[49],"class_list":["post-91462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-02 19:04:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91462"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93434,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91462\/revisions\/93434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91462"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=91462"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=91462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}