Climate change is one of the many causes of declining insect populations, threatening the pollination services that support flowering plants with important economic, cultural and aesthetic values. However, little research exists to predict how interactions between plants and their insect pollinators may be altered due to climate change. For instance, will flowers bloom before pollinators are active? Will the nutrients provided by flowers in a landscape continue to meet pollinators’ metabolic needs as temperatures increase? This information gap becomes a tangible problem when land managers must select specific seed mixes to support pollinator conservation or predict where a particular pollinator species may occur in the future.

In this project, Kaysee aims to produce mapping and planting tools that will support pollinator conservation. Kaysee will create maps of likely plant-pollinator overlaps under future climate projections and use these maps to identify the seed mixes that will most likely support pollinator conservation. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation have produced the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas, which Kaysee will leverage to identify key plant-pollinator interaction pairs and the environmental conditions associated with their interaction. This information will allow more effective planning for pollinator conservation, including in WDFW’s 2025 State Wildlife Action Plan.