Iowa State Researcher Making the Leap into Novel Genomic Sequencing to Address Declining Bee Populations
By Caitlin Ware, Iowa State University Office of the Vice President for Research
Iowa State University’s 2023 Bailey Research Career Development award has been granted to a university researcher with her eyes set on mastering the emerging field of conservation genomics in order to answer a question with major environmental impact: where have all the bees gone?
The Bailey award — administered by the Iowa State University Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) — is given each year to faculty whose work is high-risk, high-reward and addresses emerging scientific, technical, or societal problems. Amy Toth, professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology (EEOB), was recently selected for the annual award and will receive $149,000 in institutional funding over a period of three years. Toth’s research project, titled “Uniting Conservation and Genomics to Address Bee Declines,” will investigate how diet and how bees forage, pathogens and parasites, and bioindicators of health and disease play a role in declining bee species.