Rachel Brant- Urban Bee Ecology

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
― Rachel Carson

Hello! My name is Rachel Brant and I am a PhD student at University of Missouri- Saint Louis, studying urban bee behavior in Dr. Aimee Dunlap’s lab. I received my Master’s of Science in Biology from Saint Louis University in 2018, and completed a thesis dissertation under Dr. Gerardo Camilo, entitled “Body size phenology of a social sweat bee, Halictus ligatus, across three urban environments”, which analyzed how a plastic social sweat bee shifted its body size phenology in three different midwestern cities; Chicago, IL, Detroit, MI, and St. Louis, MO.

Currently I am interested in how bee diversity, ecology, and behavior are shaped by human dominated landscapes. As human populations continue to increase, and urban regions expand, I believe there is a strong need to understand how animals and plants, and most importantly our pollinators, are affected.

I have experience in bee identification, taxonomy, and curation, as well as in experimental design.