ENTM graduate student Hanna Kahl receives prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

A piece of exciting news to welcome you back from spring break!

Hanna Kahl received the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for her proposal entitled, "Choosing cues: how plant associations impact pollinator and herbivore interactions."  Hanna's proposed work will consist of "...identifying the mechanisms by which plant-plant associations impact pollinator and herbivore interactions. I described how research has suggested that a neighboring plant can influence visitation rates of pollinators and herbivores, but that this is hardly looked at in the same study system. I proposed testing these mechanisms using red clover (as the neighboring plant) and cucumber (as the focal plant). I planned to vary the arrangement across space and time of the red clover to test spatio-temporal variation in the impacts of plant-plant associations. Then I planned to examine whether increased herbivory has different effects on pollination due to differences in plant associations. Lastly I planned to test how dominant herbivores and pollinators respond to single plant (red clover or cucumber) vs. mixed plant (red clover and cucumber) odor cues."