SPARK-ND Intentional Collision Research Seed Awards: Pollinators and Cover Crops

ND EPSCoR and SPARK-ND offiered research seed awards of up to $70,000 to researchers at ND institutions of higher education. The focus of the proposed research must be directly related to April 22, 2026, Intentional Collision Event topic of Cover Crops & Pollinators. A goal of this program is to support cross-institutional team development that leads to competitive extramural funding.

The following two proposals have been awarded.

Advancing pollinator identification and conservation: the northern Great Plains bee DNA database

PI: Deirdre Prischmann-Voldseth, NDSU

Collaborators: Alex Torson, USDA-ARS; Scott Hanson, Turtle Mountain College; Gerald Fauske, NDSU

Native bees are critical pollinators in both natural and agricultural ecosystems across North Dakota. However, many bees are notoriously difficult to identify to the species level, limiting basic knowledge about their biology and ecology and stalling progress in pollinator monitoring efforts. Modern molecular identification tools could help resolve this barrier, but the current toolkit does not work well for bees, since these tools (i.e., PCR primers) were developed mainly from non-bee insect groups and often fail to reliably amplify bee DNA. This project will sequence mitochondrial genomes from frozen bee specimens held by NDSU and Turtle Mountain College, and from pinned museum specimens in the North Dakota State Insect Reference Collection to build a reference database for the state.

Cover Crops and Pollinator Forage: A Pilot Study of Forage Availability, Selection,

and Nutritional Quality Across North Dakota Cropland

PI: Hannah Correia, UND

Collaborators: Haochi Zheng, UND; Rebecca Simmons, UND; Brent Voels, Cankdeska Cikana Community College; Wendie Hasler, University of Jamestown; Rogan Tokac, NDSU

North Dakota is the nation's leading honey-producing state, and each summer commercial beekeepers bring colonies into the state to forage on its flowering plants. Honey bee colonies have suffered severe losses in recent years, driven in part by the loss of flowering forage as grassland has been converted to row crops. This loss is sharpest during the late-summer dearth, when major crops have finished flowering and little else remains in bloom. Cover crops, planted between cash crops to protect and enrich soil, are increasingly promoted in North Dakota, and many cover crop species flower. Whether cover crops provide pollen that honey bees actually use, and whether that pollen is nutritionally adequate, has not been tested. This pilot will compare pollen forage at cover-cropped and conventionally managed fields.