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Dr. Anne Leonard

( University of Nevada, Reno )

Contact

(775) 784-1932
  • Institution:University of Nevada, Reno
  • Departments: biology
  • Research Fields: Pollinators, Pollination, Chemical Ecology
  • Disciplines: Animal Behavior and Ethology, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Botany/Plant Biology, Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Neurobiology and Behavior
  • Funding:NSF - National Science Foundation, USDA - U.S. Department of Agriculture

Mentoring

I have often mentored undergraduates interested in gaining research experience, and have supervised 9 senior thesis projects at UNR. My lab attracts students with diverse interests, ranging from neuroscience to wildlife ecology to animal behavior. I typically have 1-3 graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher in the lab, who participate in a multi-level mentoring plan. We are a small and engaged group who believe in providing high quality research experiences to students. I would be happy to talk about my mentoring philosophy in person if you are interested in joining our group.

Biography

We study plant-pollinator interactions from nutritional and cognitive perspectives. We are interested in understanding how bees evaluate, learn about, and remember flowers. Likewise, we are interested in how the nutritional value of the nectar and pollen plants offer bees structures interactions with pollinators and co-flowering members of plant communities. An interest in understanding how human activities can perturb these interactions drives a parallel line of research, on how sublethal exposure to pesticides can affect bee behavior, sensory systems, and health. We address these questions using a combination of lab-based and field studies, often on bumblebees, at Sierra Nevada and Great Basin field sites.