Lynn Adler

About

Professor Lynn Adler leads the Adler Lab at UMass, focusing on the ecology and biology of pollinators, particularly bumblebees, and their interactions with pathogens. Her research encompasses nectar chemistry, bee pathogens, traits influencing disease transmission, and the community ecology of sunflowers and other plants. The lab investigates how different plant species or traits affect pathogen transmission rates and how infections impact bee foraging behavior and health. Professor Adler's work integrates aspects of pollinator protection with broader ecological and agricultural implications, emphasizing collaborative approaches to address challenges in pollinator health and disease dynamics. Her lab includes graduate students and postdoctoral researchers studying diverse topics such as coevolutionary dynamics of bumblebees and parasites, the influence of pollen on bee-parasite relationships, and the effects of landscape and floral resources on bee nutrition and pathogen dynamics in agroecosystems.

Research topics

• Biology
• Botany
• Ecology
• Horticulture
• Genetics

Selected publications

• Floral traits affecting the transmission of beneficial and pathogenic pollinator-associated microbes

  Current Opinion in Insect Science · 2020 · 57 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Flowering plant composition shapes pathogen infection intensity and reproduction in bumble bee colonies

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020 · 50 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Pathogens pose significant threats to pollinator health and food security. Pollinators can transmit diseases during foraging, but the consequences of plant species composition for infection is unknown. In agroecosystems, flowering strips or hedgerows are often used to augment pollinator habitat. We used canola as a focal crop in tents and manipulated flowering strip composition using plant species we had previously shown to result in higher or lower bee infection in short-term trials. We also ma…

  DOI

• Assessing Chemical Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Sunflower Pollen on a Gut Pathogen in Bumble Bees

  Journal of Chemical Ecology · 2020 · 31 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Sunflower spines and beyond: Mechanisms and breadth of pollen that reduce gut pathogen infection in the common eastern bumble bee

  Functional Ecology · 2023-03-19 · 25 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Plants have unique chemical and physical traits that can reduce infections in animals ranging from primates to caterpillars. Sunflowers ( Helianthus annuus ; Asteraceae) are one striking example, with pollen that suppresses infections by the trypanosomatid gut pathogen Crithidia bombi in the common eastern bumble bee ( Bombus impatiens ). However, the mechanism underlying this effect has remained elusive, and we do not know whether pollens from other Asteraceae species have similar effe…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Differential bumble bee gene expression associated with pathogen infection and pollen diet

  BMC Genomics · 2023-03-29 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Diet and parasitism can have powerful effects on host gene expression. However, how specific dietary components affect host gene expression that could feed back to affect parasitism is relatively unexplored in many wild species. Recently, it was discovered that consumption of sunflower (Helianthus annuus) pollen reduced severity of gut protozoan pathogen Crithidia bombi infection in Bombus impatiens bumble bees. Despite the dramatic and consistent medicinal effect of sunflower pollen…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• IntBIO: Collaborative Research: Integrating molecular, cellular, organismal and community scales to understand how plants structure pollinator-pathogen dynamics

  NSF · $907k · 2022–2026

• Collaborative Research: The role of floral secondary compounds in bee performance and disease transmission in a natural ecosystem

  NSF · $354k · 2013–2017

• Chemical Defenses Against Floral Enemies: Costs and Benefits of Toxic Nectar to Nectar Robbing, Pollination, and Plant Fitness

  NSF · $328k · 2002–2005

Frequent coauthors

• Rebecca E. Irwin

  Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

  93 shared

• Philip C. Stevenson

  Natural Resources Institute

  29 shared

• Evan C. Palmer‐Young

  26 shared

• Nicholas A. Barber

  21 shared

• Nina Theis

  Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology

  16 shared

• Ruth V. Hazzard

  15 shared

• E. Toby Kiers

  15 shared

• Alison E. Fowler

  National Zoological Park

  11 shared

Labs

• The Adler LabPI

Similar researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst

• R. Craig Albertsonh-41
• Paul S. Katzh-37
• Courtney C. Babbitth-20