In April Lizzy successfully defended her Undergrad Honors Thesis and promptly graduated with her BS in Natural Resources with minor in Entomology. Her thesis titled “Landscape heterogeneity drives population structure in four western bumble bee species” compared genetic structure of four North American bumble bees. Using microsatellites, she found significant structure in all four species across the mountain ranges of western USA and Canada.
Genetic structure of populations for each species using optimal K value: B. flavifrons (K = 3), B. melanopygus (K = 2), B. mixtus (K = 2), and B. sylvicola (K = 3). Each portion of the pie chart represents the average genetic assignment of all individuals in each population to one of the identified populations (K). Each color represents a different genetic cluster for each species. The grayscale backgrounds are the habitat suitability raster outputs from Maxent. Lighter areas represent areas of higher habitat suitability.