During the summer of 2019, I participated in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at the Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) in Hickory Corners, Michigan. I worked under the guidance of Dr. Hsunyi Hsieh to design and execute a project that used drone imaging and GIS technology to investigate pollination patterns and foraging behavior of pollinators in the field.
 
The project began by deploying potted black-eyed susans in the control plots with varying numbers of wild flowers at the KBS Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site and collecting GPS points where they were placed. We took thousands of individual drone photos of each plot before they were stitched together to produce highly accurate images of the fields. In QGIS, I classified the elements of these plots (wheat, soil, wild flowers, deployed black-eyed susans, etc.) based on RGB pixel values. We then calculated the surface area of individual flowers and flower clusters. Based on the location of the flowers in the field, pathways between clusters were created to demonstrate the optimal pathway a pollinator would travel between food sources. The next step in the project would have been to collect seed set data to determine the amount of pollination that occurred at each of the deployed black-eyed susan locations, thereby determining the effect that proximity to other flower clusters of varying sizes and at varying distances had on foraging behavior. Although seed set data was never collected due to time and weather restraints, Dr. Hsieh and I were able to evaluate the efficacy of new GIS methods for classification at a level of detail that had never been used in ecological research before. 

During my REU, I worked alongside peers and researchers from all over the world. Through my collaborations, I discovered a passion for research and gained investigative skills that still serve me to this day. At the end of the summer, I presented my project at the KBS Research Symposium to KBS affiliates and the Hickory Corners community. I also presented my research virtually at the 2020 Annual Ecological Society of America meeting.