Research

Documenting and understanding diversity

Accurately assessing the decline of pollinators and their services depends on our ability to properly identify them. Much of my research has centered on comparative morphological studies of native bees, with the goal of understanding their evolutionary relationships and documenting their diversity. The bee collection at the University of Kansas, the most comprehensive of its kind, plays a critical role in these efforts. I am the PI in two NSF-funded projects designed to provide equitable access to the world’s largest bee collection and facilitating the identification of native bees. The first project focuses on generating high-resolution 2D and 3D images of bee specimens from North America, building a comprehensive dataset of bee traits, and collaborating with a network of thirteen U.S. institutions and government agencies. These images and trait datasets are made available to both researchers and the public through the open-access data portal, the Bee Library. The second project, in collaboration with Kansas State University and University of Wisconsin-Madison, aims to create an extensive image database of museum specimens to facilitate the identification process for over 1,000 native bee species in North America. It will expand an existing web-based research hub (The Bee Machine) to provide expert-level identification capabilities, foster communication among researchers, and maintain a large-scale, continuously growing open dataset on bee distributions for future research.

Related publications

  • Gonzalez, V.H., Cobos, M., Jaramillo, J. & R. Ospina. 2021. Climate change will reduce the potential distribution ranges of Colombia’s most valuable pollinators. Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation 19(2): 195–206.
  • Gonzalez, V.H., Gustafson, G. & M.S. Engel. 2019. Morphological phylogeny of Megachilini and the evolution of leaf-cutter behavior in bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae). Journal of Melittology 85: 1–123.
  • Gonzalez, V.H. & T. Griswold. 2013. Wool carder bees of the genus Anthidium in the Western Hemisphere (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae): diversity, host plant associations, phylogeny and biogeography. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 168: 221–425.
  • Gonzalez, V.H., Griswold, T. & M.S. Engel. 2013. Obtaining a better understanding of native bees: where do we start?. Systematic Entomology 38: 645–653.
  • Gonzalez, V.H., Griswold, T., Praz, C.J. & B. Danforth. 2012. Phylogeny of the bee family Megachilidae (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) based on adult morphology. Systematic Entomology 37: 261‒286.

Biogeography of bees’ thermal tolerance

One of the greatest challenges in ecology and conservation today is understanding how insects, especially bees, will respond to climate change, as these responses will vary based on location, morphology, physiology, ecology, and behavior. How do we predict these responses for bees given their vast diversity in body size, coloration, seasonality, behavior, and life-history traits? Are heat and cold tolerances limited by phylogenetic constraints across bee clades? Does the capacity for plastic responses vary between species and evolutionary lineages? To explore these questions, I employ comparative and experimental approaches across multiple taxa (major bee lineages), regions (tropical and temperate), and levels of organization (from individual organisms to communities).

Related publications

  • Gonzalez, V.H., Manweiler, R., Smith, A.R., Oyen, K., Cardona, D. & W.T. Wcislo. 2023. Low heat tolerance and high desiccation resistance in nocturnal bees and the implications for nocturnal pollination under climate change. Scientific Reports 13:22320.
  • Gonzalez, V.H., Oyen, K., Ávila, O. & R. Ospina. 2022. Thermal limits of Africanized honey bees are influenced by temperature ramping rate but not by other experimental conditions. Journal of Thermal Biology 110: 103369.
  • Gonzalez, V.H., Oyen, K., Aguilar, M., Herrera, A., Martin, R.D. & R. Ospina. 2022. High thermal tolerance in high-elevation species and laboratory-reared colonies of tropical bumble bees. Ecology and Evolution 12: e9560.
  • Gonzalez, V.H., Oyen, K., Vitale, N. & R. Ospina. 2022. Neotropical stingless bees display a strong response in cold tolerance with changes in elevation. Conservation Physiology 10: coac073.

Physiological responses to environmental stressors

Bees are exposed to a myriad of environmental stressors throughout their lives (e.g., habitat loss, pesticides, poor nutrition, etc.) and climate change is expected to accentuate the effect of these stressors. My research assesses the physiological and behavioral responses of bees to thermal and desiccation stress under the influence of one or more environmental stressors. I am assessing the effect of nutritional stress as well as of acute and chronic sublethal doses of neonicotinoid pesticides on bees’ thermal tolerance.

Related publications

  • Gonzalez, V.H., Herbison, N., Herrera, A., Oyen, K. & D.R. Smith. 2025. Thermal tolerance in the cellophane bee Colletes inaequalis reflects early spring adaptation and is independent of body size and sex. Ecology and Evolution 15(8): e71983.
  • Gonzalez, V.H., Rancher, W., Vigil, R., Garino-Heisey, I., Oyen, K., Tscheulin, T., Petanidou, T., J. Hranitz, & J.F. Barthell. 2024. Bees remain heat tolerant after acute exposure to desiccation and starvation. Journal of Experimental Biology 227(24): jeb249216.
  • Gonzalez, V.H., Herbison, N., Robles, G., Panganiban, T., Haefner, L., Tscheulin, T., Petanidou, T. & J. Hranitz. 2024. Bees display limited acclimation capacity for heat tolerance.  Biology Open 13:bio060179.
  • Gonzalez, V.H., Hranitz, J.M., McGonigle, M.B., Manweiler, R.E., Smith, D.R. & J.F. Barthell. 2022. Acute exposure to sublethal doses of neonicotinoid insecticides increases heat tolerance in honey bees. PLoS ONE 17(2): e0240950.