June 2025: Sara D. Leonhardt managed with the help of more then 30 European wide collaborators to get a new project called ProPollSoil funded under the Horizon scheme of the EU. This has not only been a major effort but also a great success Congratulations! We, PII, are all looking forward to see the first interesting results from this project which will combine Soil and Pollinator research on a european scale.
May 2025: The Plus-MINT Camp was another wonderful opportunity for PII to share our knowledge and introduce, in this case very motivated students from several boarding schools, to our work. Our team was truly impressed by the students and we hope that we could share our excitement for plants and insects. It definitly got a lot of interest by the public, as it was covered in several local news outlets (Article 1, Article 2). Further Links: the Plus-Mint Project and the hosting School Schloss Neubeuern.
May 2025: Celebrating World Bee day, we decided to show the work we do, especially the RestPollProject, at the campus. We put the diversityof Bees literally on display with two insect boxes. With a stereo microscope people could look closer and try to find feathered hairs of bees or scales of butterfly wings. But the highlight for most was one of our live Bumblebee colonies. We also interviewed people for RestPoll, and introduced people how to safely handle and identify Bees. We are quite happy that the Süddeutsche Zeitung also reported on our efforts in an small article.
May 2025: Following a long and fruitful discussion on Social Media presence in the group we decided to be more vocal and start our Instagram account. We will use this platform to share our experience as researcher, inform about our topics and share when needed also our opinion as scientists.
May 2025: With Jan Buellesbach joining PII as a Heisenberg associate professor we not only grow by number. Jan will broaden our focus not only to new exciting species groups but also establish a very intricate method that will help us understand how insects perceive their environment.
April 2025: Michal Filipiak, a long term collaborator of PII, joined us for a whole year. He will take a closer look at bumblebees capabilities of sensing specific elements. We look forward to further collaborate, exchange and work together. Some of his work is summarized in this short Youtube Video.
March 2025: We are happy to welcome Aye Aye Myint as a new PhD candidate to our team. She will investigate as part of the Butterfly Project not only Pollinators but also ways to motivate people to participate in activities that support them.
January 2025: We have a new PhD Positionavailable! We look forward for a new motivated member joining our team. Please make sure to read the Joining the team page if you want to apply!
December 2024: We are always happy to join interviews, especially when the information is specifically designed for younger audiences. This time Kenneth Kuba was interviewed for a podcast by the Wissenschaftsreporter. If you are interested on the topics like Insect decline or pest insects, you can listen in. Available also via most Music/podcast services.
October 2024: This years retreat was a full success, with an intensive exchange of thoughts. Defining what PII stands for and where we want not only to excel at but also how we want to get there with this great team.
May 2024: If you wondered what some of PIIs most pressing questions are, have a listen into the 31st episode of the Beesknees Podcast, where Sara Leonhardt answers a couple of these: https://thebeesknees.website/bee-nutrition/
May 2024: We are happy to welcome Jacek Jachuła as a Guest Researcher at the Lab to spark further fruitful cooperation.
April 2024: Preliminary program for our summer seminar is out! Join us for exciting talks followed by snacks and drinks and personal exchange with the speaker and colleagues every Thursday at 16.00. In addition to last years seminar we also offer a zoom link for online participation. See program.
Fall 2023: We welcome Franziska Mück as new team member who will do her PhD in the new BlüDiv project!
Summer 2023: We welcome a new team member Gaya ten Kate who will do her PhD in the new CityBees project! We are also excited to host Ashlyn from Canada who has joined the ever growing REASSEMBLY pollination group :-)
May 2023: Our summer seminar has started. Please join us for exciting talks followed by snacks and drinks and personal exchange with the speaker and colleagues every Thursday at 16.00. See program.
March 2023: We welcome our new team member Vidisha Bansal as a PhD student! She will investigate the role of intraspecific variation in floral traits for interactions between plants and pollinators.
November 2022: New PhD position available with our group. For details, see. Please, apply until December 31st.
July 2022: LOTS OF EXCITING THINGS HAPPENING. Kenneth got a DBU fellowship for his PhD work on microplastic effects on bees - congrats!!! We have two young visiting scientists who joined our group: Ismail from Turkey and Kelsey from the US! And: Bayern1 radio station as well as the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported about our "Insektentag an der Uni..."
May 2022: 80 students from elementary and primary schools visiting us at uni to discover more about the fascinating world of insects - "Insektentag an der Uni..."
April 2022: Start of our SOLS Systems Summer Seminar - Sustainibility & Diversity: from Observations and Basic Research to Applied Science - with an exciting list of speakers: Program
January 2022: We welcome Ugo Mendes Diniz as new team member! He will set out to disentangle pollination networks in the wet tropics in Ecuador :-)
August 2021: We welcome a new PhD student in our new project on the reassembly of tropical plant-pollinator along a restoration gradient as part of the new research group FOR 5207 (Reassembly).
May 2021: Not mowing in May? Interview with ZDF on whether or not reduced mowing in our backyards can help bees. Turned into an interesting discussion on insect decline, wicked problems and the role of our (global) society: https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/bienen-maehfreier-mai-100.html
27th of April 2021: Tonight (18:00) online talk (in German) at TUM@Freising: "Bienen vor dem Aus? Kann man unsere Bestäuber noch retten?" - looking forward to joint discussion on importance of structural diversity with Peter Annighöfer! wzw.tum.d/index.php
22nd of April 2021: Radio interview on bumblebees with Antenne Bayern!
April 2021: NutriB2 and MacroBEEs fieldwork started!
11th - 12th March 2021: Our team organized the first virtual pollination phytochemistry discussion meeting, a mixture of talks from experts in the field and of discussions on topics related to floral resource chemistry, methods and nutritional & sensory ecology. For details see (download pdf). If you would like to read the notes or watch the talks, just send us a note.
February 2021: Check out our new paper on Mutualisms and (a)symmetries in plant-pollinator interactions - published in Current Biology:https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1cTab_LsQSOqDF.
6-8th Nov 2020: Nice presentations of several team members at the virtual SCAPE 2020 meeting: scape-pollination.org/scape-2020/ - lots of vivid discussions and questions afterwards!
Okt 2nd 2020: Fabian defended his PhD thesis and received a summa cum laude for his work. Congratulations!
