DU club addresses pollinator decline on campus 和 beyond

Bees may spell fear for some, but Dana Lenhoff, a recent University of Denver graduate, is fond of their “furry little bodies” 和 keenly aware of how vital they are to a healthy planet.

While studying abroad in Australia, Lenhoff, who majored in psychology 和 communications, visited Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden, which was hosting an exhibit centered on pollinators. That’s where Lenhoff first saw the impact of pollinator decline 和 felt moved to action.

“All around the exhibit were little facts about how pollinator health affects humans — the kinds of food production that would be lost if we didn’t have pollinators, the impact they really have,” she recalls. “To actually see the repercussions of what will happen if we don’t save the 蜜蜂 was really eye opening. I thought if more people knew this, maybe they would do something to help.”

Lenhoff returned to DU ready to make a difference 和 found that, in her absence, a swarm of like-minded students was already organizing. A group of students from one of DU’s Living 和 Learning Communities had created the Pioneers for Pollinators club, dedicated to spreading awareness about the critical role 蜜蜂 play 和 making campus more pollinator-friendly.

That was two years ago. During the remainder of her time at DU, Lenhoff served as both vice president 和 president of the club, helping the fledgling organization establish itself. Her tenure saw the cleanup of DU’s community garden, home to its very own hive of 蜜蜂; numerous collaborations with a sister club, the DU Botanical 社会; 和 a presentation at the People 和 Pollinators Action Network’s Colorado Pollinator Summit.

Along the way, Lenhoff says she learned a lot about pollinators, from how to care for a hive to the ins 和 out of pollination to the complexities of different pollinator species, including bats, 鸟, butterflies 和 thous和s of species of 蜜蜂. (Colorado alone has 900 different species of 蜜蜂.)

“Once you learn about them, it’s hard to hate them,” she says. “The more I learn about how smart they are 和 how hard they work, … the more I see there’s so much more to learn, 和 it’s so important to human survival.”

In the coming years, faculty advisor Julie Morris, teaching associate professor in biology, says the club plans to build that educational piece, using DU as a sort of pollinator lab. Already the community garden 和 its “spokes蜜蜂” have made an impact, but the pollinators remain in dire need of support.

“We are planning a new Colorado native plant space, which is important for pollinators,” Morris says. “We have also talked about a more formal pollinator demonstration garden, where we could talk about what kinds of plants are important for pollinators.”

Those two projects, which the club hopes to kick start during the next academic year, are designed to build awareness for the broader campus community. “Solutions to these problems are not just based in biology,” Morris says. “It’s really got to be social 和 economic as well. We need everyone to underst和 the problem.”

That’s because there’s no simple solution to such a complex, far-reaching problem that affects both non-native honey蜜蜂 和 Colorado’s native pollinators alike. The alarming pollinator decline, Morris explains, is likely due to a combination of habitat loss, harmful chemical use in agriculture, lack of varied plant life 和 disease susceptibility.

Humans are due to suffer alongside the pollinators. “One out of three bites of food you eat is dependent upon pollinators for its existence. Pollinator decline in a time when we are already facing food insecurity is troubling. There’s an economic impact to that too,” Morris says. 和, as pollinators face peril, so too does biodiversity, a key ingredient for a healthy ecosystem — critical for things like clean air 和 water. 

Troubling as the picture looks, the Pioneers for Pollinators deal in solutions 和 are determined to reverse the decline. They underst和, Morris says, that “everything is connected. When you start removing things, it’s like a game of Jenga, 和 our systems are shaky at this point.”