October 2025

I am so excited to share that my first first-author manuscript is now published with the Journal of Pollination Ecology! This manuscript presents novel data on how commercial bumble bee colonies are affected by foraging in a cucurbit crop mesotunnel, and introduces the colony health indices I've been developing. It was important to me that this journal is open-access, so anyone can read it online for free. I feel really humbled and excited to have made this step in my career. Happy reading!

First first-author publication!

Critter Crawl

August 2025

The annual nighttime Critter Crawl at Raven Run Nature Preserve was a big hit! I collaborated with the members of Beryl Jones's lab to create an outreach table on the nesting habits of native bees. We got a great response and plan to use this unit at future outreach events.

Ecology 2025

August 2025

I was stoked to attend my first Ecology meeting in Baltimore! I presented a sneak peek of the two-year analysis from my diversified mesotunnel experiments, which is looking promising. It was amazing to meet the student and faculty members of the Agroecology section, and visit the incredible American Visionary Art Museum.

Field work is underway!

June 2025

This summer I am completing a couple field experiments as side projects. One study is on the pollinator-dependence, pollination rates, and fruit quality of eggplant. Another that I am very excited about is a landscape and nutrition study using bumble bee colonies on organic farms and horse pastures. I'm looking forward to seeing where these projects go.

Organic Association of Kentucky conference

January 2025

I presented a session on "Practical pollinator support for Kentucky farms," where I shared a framework for choosing and implementing on-farm conservation methods. This farmer-focused conference is always a highlight of the year for me, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to present after attending for many years!

Exploring Montreal's Insectarium

December 2024

While on a family trip, I convinced my family to go to the Montreal Insectarium- and I'm so glad I did! I was overwhelmed with the beautiful flight house and specimen collections, and I even held an (off-exhibit) roach, much to my family's horror. The quality of scicomm to a range of audiences was inspiring. This is definitely worth a visit.

Farewell Tomas!

December 2024

Tomas, an undergraduate student from Earth University in Costa Rica, finished his internship with the Gonthier lab and is heading back home. I mentored Tomas in an independent research project on pollen diversity, and he created and presented a poster at our lab meeting. We are so proud of him!

Entomology 2024

November 2024

I presented my invited talk titled "Using a novel mesocosm system to reveal effects of floral diversification on bumble bee colony-level health." in the symposium "Management Impacts on Arthropod-based Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Landscapes." A highlight of the conference for me was attending Dr. Doug Landis's retirement symposium and hearing about the amazing work his former students have gone on to do, and visiting Phoenix's Desert Botanical Gardens!

Qualified ✅

October 2024

I am so happy (and relieved) to share that I have passed my qualifying exams and officially advanced to candidacy! Many thanks to my committee members for helping me through the process and making it a good experience. I will now be doing a lot of jigsaw puzzles to relax!

All images and content on this site belong to Lexi Gauger except where otherwise noted. All opinions expressed are personal and do not represent the University of Kentucky.