Rufus Isaacs

Professor of Entomology Michigan State University

  • East Lansing MI

Expert in bees, pollination and bees impact on crops

Contact

Michigan State University

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Biography

Over the past decade, our research has supported pest management in Michigan berry crops with greater adoption of monitoring and use of selective insecticides. This progress has been undermined to some extent by the recent arrival of spotted wing Drosophila, but the Early Detection Rapid Response that we put in place has helped develop an effective approach to SWD management in the affected crops, with a ~$20 million reduction in the economic impact of this pest during 2014 compared to the years before. In the crop pollination arena, development of the Integrated Crop Pollination concept, and its development into a national project is changing the dialogue about honey bees vs. native bees and helping to foster a more holistic view of farm management for pollination.

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning
Research
Renewables and Environmental
Biotechnology

Areas of Expertise

Pest management
Pollination
Grape
Berry Corps
Pollinator Conservation
Crop Pollination

Accomplishments

Grant to Develop Sustainable Pollination Strategies

2014-08-05

U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Education

University of London, Imperial College at Silwood Park

Ph.D.

1994

University of London

B.S.

1990

News

A 15-year study shows effects of extreme weather on bees

Phys  online

2021-05-19

During a 15-year study of wild bees visiting blueberry fields during their blooming season, researchers caught an unexpected glimpse of how extreme weather events can impact bee populations highlighting the need for more long-term studies, says a Michigan State University researcher. "There are few bee studies in the U.S. that have sampled bees for many years at the same location," said Rufus Isaacs, a professor in the Department of Entomology within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, "There are even fewer that use the same methods over more than a decade."

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Save the Bees? There's an App for That

University Communications: University of Vermont  

2017-02-19

“Government action is key, but saving bees requires more than that,” says Rufus Isaacs of Michigan State University, director of the Integrated Crop Pollination (ICP) Project. “Leadership from the private sector, especially farmers and agricultural businesses, is crucial. Their choices will have a huge impact on whether pollinators fail or flourish.”

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Pollination Progress: MSU Researchers Work to Protect Bees

MSU Today  

2016-06-23

It’s been four years since Michigan State University AgBioResearch entomologist Rufus Isaacs and his team set out to find methods that could help growers ensure their crops were pollinated in the face of rising threats to traditional honey bee colonies. They've since made discoveries to help preserve, protect and educate people on the issue...

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Journal Articles

A global quantitative synthesis of local and landscape effects on wild bee pollinators in agroecosystems

Ecology Letters

2013

Bees provide essential pollination services that are potentially affected both by local farm management and the surrounding landscape. To better understand these different factors, we modelled the relative effects of landscape composition (nesting and floral resources within foraging distances), landscape configuration (patch shape, interpatch connectivity and habitat aggregation) and farm management (organic vs. conventional and local-scale field diversity), and their interactions, on wild bee abundance and richness for 39 crop systems globally. Bee abundance and richness were higher in diversified and organic fields and in landscapes comprising more high-quality habitats; bee richness on conventional fields with low diversity benefited most from high-quality surrounding land cover. Landscape configuration effects were weak. Bee responses varied slightly by biome. Our synthesis reveals that pollinator persistence will depend on both the maintenance of high-quality habitats around farms and on local management practices that may offset impacts of intensive monoculture agriculture.

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Wild pollinators enhance fruit set of crops regardless of honey bee abundance

Science

2013

The majority of food crops require pollination to set fruit with the honeybee providing a pollination workhorse, with both feral and managed populations an integral component of crop management (see the Perspective by Tylianakis, published online 28 February). Garibaldi et al. (p. 1608, published online 28 February) now show that wild pollinators are also a vital part of our crop systems. In more than 40 important crops grown worldwide, wild pollinators improved pollination efficiency, increasing fruit set by twice that facilitated by honeybees. Burkle et al. (p. 1611, published online 28 February) took advantage of one of the most thorough and oldest data sets available on plant-pollinator interaction networks and recollected data on plant-pollinator interactions after more than 120 years of climate change and landscape alteration. The historical data set consists of observations collected by Charles Robertson near Carlinville, Illinois (USA), in the late 1800s on the phenology of plants and their pollinating insects, as well as information about which plants and pollinators interacted with one another. Many sites were revisited in the early 1970s and in 2009 and 2010 to collect similar plant-pollinator data. Pollinator function has declined through time, with bees showing lower visitation rates and lower fidelity to individual plant species.

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Stability of pollination services decreases with isolation from natural areas despite honey bee visits

Ecology Letters

2011

Sustainable agricultural landscapes by definition provide high magnitude and stability of ecosystem services, biodiversity and crop productivity. However, few studies have considered landscape effects on the stability of ecosystem services. We tested whether isolation from florally diverse natural and semi-natural areas reduces the spatial and temporal stability of flower-visitor richness and pollination services in crop fields. We synthesised data from 29 studies with contrasting biomes, crop species and pollinator communities. Stability of flower-visitor richness, visitation rate (all insects except honey bees) and fruit set all decreased with distance from natural areas. At 1 km from adjacent natural areas, spatial stability decreased by 25, 16 and 9% for richness, visitation and fruit set, respectively, while temporal stability decreased by 39% for richness and 13% for visitation. Mean richness, visitation and fruit set also decreased with isolation, by 34, 27 and 16% at 1 km respectively. In contrast, honey bee visitation did not change with isolation and represented > 25% of crop visits in 21 studies. Therefore, wild pollinators are relevant for crop productivity and stability even when honey bees are abundant. Policies to preserve and restore natural areas in agricultural landscapes should enhance levels and reliability of pollination services.

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