| Tobin J. Hammer, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology (above), has an unusual new project: creating diapers for bees. As he explained to KCRW, evidence shows that parasites living inside the bees are one of the contributors to their recent population decline. “We’re looking at interactions between parasites and beneficial bacteria in the bee to understand what is going on there,” he says. “We’re doing experiments right now to test whether we can use fecal samples, bee poop, to characterize the bacteria and parasites in their gut.” |
