Dr. Anne Averill is Project Director and works to coordinate the research and outreach efforts of the many cooperators in the Pollinator Security for Northeastern Crops USDA-SCRI grant.
She is a professor and co-director of the Environmental Science undergraduate major in the Department of Environmental Conservation at UMass-Amherst. Her specialization is in Insect Behavior and Ecology (Insect/Plant Interactions, Cranberry Entomology). For the SCRI project, she also leads the research on cranberry. She is conducting studies of the bee community in this crop, with a focus on bumble bees, the most abundant of the native pollinators in bog systems. Much of the work involves survey and impacts of pathogens, habitat enhancements, and pesticides on bees in the cranberry system. She works extensively with the cranberry industry and grower cooperators, and is particularly interested in how the transition to new fungicides and insecticides utilized during bloom may impact foraging bees.
Contact Information
email: averill@eco.umass.edu