sponsler - Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology

Spatiotemporal and behavioral perspectives on plant-pollinator ecology
Urban ecology and human-nature interactions
Social insects
Causal inference
Bayesian modeling
Honey bee biology and beekeeping

EU Project Safeguard

Safeguard aims to expand current assessments of the status and trends of European wild pollinators, including bees, butterflies, flies, and other insects. It will use empirical research, knowledge synthesis and state-of-the-art models to reveal current and future impacts of pressures on wild pollinators, paying particular attention to emerging threats, how different threats interact, and what the long-term and cumulative effects are.

Bumble bees and wildflowers of the Berchtesgadener Alps

Interaction dynamics through time and elevation
Floral resource partitioning by coexisting generalists

Douglas B. Sponsler, Ph.D.

Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, University of Würzburg

University of Würzburg

Room C-018, Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology

Biocenter - Am Hubland

Würzburg, Germany

Email: douglas.sponsler@uni-wuerzburg.de / sponslerdb@gmail.com

EDUCATION

2011-16 Ph.D., Entomology, The Ohio State University

2007-10 B.S., Biology, Cedarville University

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS

2020-- Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

2018-21 Research Associate, Department of Botany, Academy of Natural Science of Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA.

2017-20 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Entomology / Center for Pollinator Research, Penn State University, State College, PA.

PUBLICATIONS

Refereed journal articles

McMinn-Sauder H […] Sponsler DB. Next-generation colony weight monitoring: a review and prospectus. Apidologie (in review)

Frank ET […] Sponsler DB, et al. Antimicrobial wound care in an ant society. Nature Communications (in review)

Boetzl FA, Sponsler DB, et al. Distance functions underlying natural enemy within-field distributions: assessing the effects of crop type and adjacent habitats. Proceedings of the Royal Society B (in review)

Sponsler DB, Iverson AI, Steffan-Dewenter I. Pollinator competition and the structure of floral resources. 2023. Ecography (in press)

Quinlan G, Sponsler DB, et al. 2022. Grassy–herbaceous land moderates regional climate effects on honey bee colonies in the Northcentral U.S. Environmental Research Letters 17;064036.

Sponsler DB, Requier F, Kallnik K, Claßen A, Maihoff AF, Sieger J, Steffan-Dewenter I. 2022. Contrasting patterns of richness, abundance, and turnover in mountain bumble bees and their floral hosts. In press at Ecology.

Sponsler DB, Kallnik K, Requier F, Claßen A, Maihoff AF, Sieger J, Steffan-Dewenter I. 2022. Floral preferences of mountain bumble bees are constrained by functional traits but flexible through elevation and season. In press at Oikos.

Sponsler DB, Bratman EZ. 2021. Beekeeping in, of, or for the city? A socioecological analysis of urban apiculture in the United States. People and Nature 3:550-559

Lin C-H, Sponsler DB, Richardson RT, Watters H, Glinski D, Henderson M, Minucci J, Lee EH, Purucker T, Johnson RM. 2021. Honey bees and neonicotinoid-treated corn seed: contamination, exposure, and effects. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 40:1212-1221.

Richardson RT, Eaton T, Lin C-H. Cherry G, Johnson RM, Sponsler DB. 2021. Application of plant metabarcoding to identify diverse honeybee pollen forage along an urban–agricultural gradient. Molecular Ecology 30:310-323.

Sponsler DB, Shump D, Richardson RT, Grozinger CM. 2020. Characterizing the floral resources of a North American metropolis using a honey bee foraging assay. Ecosphere 11(4):e03102. 10.1002/ecs2.3102.

Sponsler DB, Grozinger CM, Richardson RT, Nurse A, Brough D, Patch H, Stoner K. 2020. A screening-level assessment of the pollinator-attractiveness of ornamental nursery stock using a honey bee foraging assay. Scientific Reports 10:831.

Douglas MR, Sponsler DB, Lonsdorf EV, Grozinger CM. 2020. County-level analysis reveals a rapidly shifting landscape of bee toxic load on US farmland. Scientific Reports 10:797.

Richardson RT, Sponsler DB, McMinn-Sauder H, Johnson RM. 2020. MetaCurator: A hidden Markov model-based toolkit for extracting and curating sequences from taxonomically-informative genetic markers. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 11:181-186.

Sponsler DB, Grozinger CM, Hitaj C, Rundlöf M, Botías C, Code A, Lonsdorf EV, Melathopoulos AP, Smith DJ, Suryanaryanan S, Thogmartin WE, Williams NM, Zhang M, Douglas MR. 2019. Pesticides and pollinators: a socioecological synthesis. Science of the Total Environment 662:1012-1027.

Richardson RT, Curtis HR, Matcham EG, Lin C-H, Suresh S, Sponsler DB, Hearon LE, Johnson RM. 2019. Quantitative multi-locus metabarcoding and waggle dance interpretation reveal honey bee spring foraging patterns in Midwest agroecosystems. Molecular Ecology 28:686-697.

Sponsler DB, Matcham EG, Lin C-H, Lanterman JL, Johnson RM. 2017. Spatial and taxonomic patterns of honey bee foraging: a choice test between urban and agricultural landscapes. Journal of Urban Ecology 3:1-7.

Sponsler DB, Johnson RM. 2017. Mechanistic modeling of honey bee pesticide exposure: the missing keystone of honey bee toxicology. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 36:871-881. Winner of 2016 ET&C Best Paper award

Sponsler DB, Johnson RM. 2015. Honey bee success predicted by landscape composition in Ohio, USA. PeerJ 3:e838.

Richardson RT, Lin C-H, Sponsler DB, Quijia-Pillajo JO, Goodell K, Johnson RM. 2015. Application of ITS2 metabarcoding to determine the provenance of pollen collected by honey bees in an agroecosystem. Applications in Plant Sciences 3:1400066

Popular or semi-technical articles

Sponsler DB, Johnson RM. 2017. Poisoning a society: a superorganism perspective on honey bee toxicology. Bee World 95:30-32.

Sponsler DB. 2015. Honey bee success in Ohio’s landscapes. Ohio Beekeeping 4:26-27.

Sponsler DB, Lin C-H, Johnson RM. 2014. Honey bee losses and toxic corn seed dust. Ohio Beekeeping 3:11, 23

GRANTS

Author/co-author

Grozinger CM, Sponsler DB. 2020. Establishing the Penn State Honey Diagnostics Lab to serve Pennsylvania Beekeepers. Pennsylvania Commonwealth Specialty Crop Block Grant. ($47,797)

Sponsler DB, Grozinger CM. 2018. Strengthening urban apiculture, crop production, and biodiversity by understanding the habitat needs of wild and managed bees. USDA-NIFA-AFRI Postdoctoral Fellowship. ($163,000)

Jones TO, Lonsdorf E, Douglas M, Grozinger C, Patch H, Sponsler DB. 2017. Location, location, location: developing tools for selection and management of landscapes to promote healthy bee populations. North American Pollinator Protection Campaign. ($9,777)

Sponsler DB, Grozinger CM. 2017. Impact of urban landscapes on honey bee nutritional resources: a pilot study. Apes Valentes research grant. ($6,037)

Sponsler DB, Lin C-H, Richardson RT, Wransky M, Johnson RM. 2015. An Ohio pollen database. Ohio State Beekeepers’ Association. ($2,500)

Sponsler DB, Johnson RM. 2014. Honey bee nutrition in the Midwestern landscape: assessing pollen diversity and nutrition along an urban-rural gradient in central Ohio. Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, SEEDS grant. ($2,990)

Sponsler DB, Johnson RM. 2013. Development of a portable hive scale. Ohio State Beekeepers’ Association. ($2,000)

Sponsler DB, Johnson RM. 2012. Honey bee success in urban and rural landscapes. Ohio State Beekeepers’ Association. ($2,478)