Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with Rocky Mountains Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)

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The US Geological Survey (USGS) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in the following research area: the immunology of insects with a focus on imperiled bumble bees. The research is to develop tools for the recovery of endangered or imperiled bumble bees such as Bombus affinis (rusty patched bumble bee) and Bombus occidentalis (western bumble bee). Each of these species were once widespread and dominant throughout parts of North America but have declined rapidly in the past 20 years. The leading hypothesis for the cause of this decline has been the proliferation of a pathogen, Variomorpha bombi, in wild bumble bees. Strategies to decrease the negative effects of this pathogen are therefore of great interest to the recovery of these bumble bee species.