Amy Waananen

Echinacea Project 2018

Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 2017-

Biology, St. Olaf College, 2015

Research Interests

I’m interested in how bees move pollen between isolated plant populations and whether this movement maintains connectivity between populations, potentially mitigating the genetic and demographic decline caused by habitat fragmentation and small population sizes. This summer, I’m hoping to understand this better by starting a project to look at pollen movement within and among the remnant populations of Echinacea, and how these movement patterns relate to individuals’ spatial isolation and phenology.

Statement

Hey flog, I’m back! I used to be an intern with Team Echinacea and now I’m a grad student in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota. In my free time I like to garden, read, bake, cook, swim, run, ski, and fish! I’m very excited to be back in western Minnesota again this summer. I’m especially looking forward to collecting exciting data, learning about the exciting new projects the team is starting, eating watermelon, and writing flog posts! In the future, I hope to understand how habitat fragmentation affects the way bees move pollen around landscapes and win a trollphy at Flekkefest.

Here’s me with some flowers!