Guthrie Allen

Guthrie Allen

Profile

I studied Ecology at undergraduate level and, just prior to starting this PhD, completed an MSc in Applied Ecology and Conservation at UEA. I’m driven by a desire to conserve wildlife, and I have a particular interest in plant–insect interactions in agricultural landscapes. The findings from my master’s dissertation project, Sampling bees in a neglected habitat: indications that woodland canopies play an important role in supporting bee communities in a temperate agricultural landscape, will inform the direction my PhD project takes.

Guthrie Allen

Ecology and Biodiversity

PhD title: The role of woodlands in the diversity and resilience of pollinator communities in agricultural landscapes

In recent years, evidence has been mounting for the role of woodland in increasing bee

abundance and/or diversity in agricultural landscapes. However, our understanding of the role of the woodland canopy – and of its constituent trees – is still in its infancy. The findings from my master’s dissertation project suggest that woodland canopies can harbour significant bee abundance; that insect-pollinated trees can boost this; but also, that the abundant wind-pollinated trees of temperate woodlands may have a role to play in provisioning pollen.

For this PhD, I will be expanding and refining woodland canopy sampling and investigating how pollinator abundance and diversity change as different trees come into bloom. Alongside this, I plan to identify and quantify the pollen collected by bees using molecular techniques.

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1218-3583