Pollinators in the Woods: The Place of Wild Bees in a Changing Forested Landscape

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Webinar information

Recommendations for supporting diverse native pollinators usually focus on summer gardens, meadows, and open spaces, but that is only part of the story. Indeed, crops near forest patches often show increased pollinator activity--and even benefits to yield and fruit quality! Research to untangle this paradox has found that one third of bees are fully forest-associated, and another third rely on forests for part of their life cycles. Many forest-associated species are solitary, spring-flying, and rely on healthy forest soils, complex deadwood, resins, saps, and a diverse bouquet of understory, mid-story, and even canopy flowers. This talk will introduce forest-bee natural history connections and how you can learn to notice them in your woods. Finally, it connects the health and diversity of these bees to threats to forest health and strategies for forest health stewardship which will in turn support bees.

Speaker

Kass Urban-Mead PhD, Mid-Atlantic Pollinator Conservation Biologist and NRCS Partner Biologist; The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

Is this webinar for you?

This webinar is appropriate for land managers, foresters, conservation professionals, and any other interested landowners or researchers. We anticipate that this webinar will provide understanding of the complex and sometimes unexpected connections between management for forest health and pollinator conservation.

Registration

1. Click REGISTER to the right of the webinar title. Be sure to log in with your SAF account username and password.

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Pricing

This webinar is FREE ($0) for all attendees and was made possible by contributions from the following professional development partners:

USDA Forest Service
Manulife Investment Management
Oregon Department of Forestry
Oregon Forest Resources Institute
Oregon State University

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Webinar access

The recorded webinar is accessible through July 18, 2025.

Access this webinar within the Contents tab (to the right of the Overview information).

Webinar duration

This webinar is 1 hour.

Learning objectives

Upon successful completion of this webinar, you will be able to:

1. Discuss pollinator diversity and describe simple life cycles of several typical wild bees.

2. Describe how pollination services are affected in crops which are adjacent to forests.

3. Explain how many pollinators are forest-associated and define this term.

4. Explain how threats to forest health (i.e. invasive species, fire suppression, excessive deer browsing) can directlya nd indirectly threaten pollinator populations

Rubric

Successful completion of the webinar is measured by participating in the entire webinar and completing the evaluation.

Evaluation

Participant feedback is appreciated to help the working group and presenters continually improve webinars for future programming.

CFEs

Upon successful completion of this webinar, you will earn 1.0 CFEs in Category 1. CFEs will automatically be added to your CFE record located on www.eforester.org by the end of the day (11:59 pm ET).

Certificate

Upon successful completion of this webinar and evaluation, participants may download and print a certificate verifying completion of the webinar and earning SAF CFEs. CFE certificates will only be available until July 19, 2025 at 12:00 am ET.

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Following the day of the webinar, you can return to download your certificate accessing the webinar information within the general listing of YOUR DASHBOARD for 12 months following the webinar. The webinar product will become inaccessible on July 19, 2025 at 12:00 am ET.

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Refund

This is a non-refundable item. Please view FAQs for additional information.

Kass Urban-Mead

Mid-Atlantic Pollinator Conservation Biologist & NRCS Partner Biologist

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

As the Mid-Atlantic Pollinator Conservation Specialist for Xerces, Dr. Kass Urban-Mead works with staff and research partners to develop technical guidelines and provide training on pollinator conservation practices. She directly assists with planning, designing, installing, and managing habitat in forested, agricultural, and urban areas. She completed a master’s at Yale School of Forestry. Her graduate work in the Cornell Entomology Department characterized the wild bees activity in early spring forests and forest canopies, quantified canopy pollen by spring-active bees, and explored the movement of bees between forests and orchards. Kass grew up raising 4-H dairy goats in the Hudson Valley, NY.

Michael Ulyshen (Moderator)

Research Entomologist

USDA Forest Service

Michael’s research focuses on how pollinator diversity and composition vary depending on forest structure, tree composition, and management activities. Most recently, he has been working with a large group of collaborators to survey bees, hover flies, and butterflies in forests across the southeastern U.S. This work seeks to better understand the diversity of forest-dwelling pollinators native to the region as well as to clarify how these assemblages are shaped by ecoregion, landscape context, stand conditions.

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