James Crall
he/him
Assistant Professor
Interests: Pollination, agroecology, behavioral ecology, global change, planetary health
(608) 890-3916
437 Russell Laboratories
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Faculty Profile
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Research Interests
We are interested in how organisms interact with each other and their abiotic environments, and how these interactions drive broader ecological processes and the delivery of ecosystem services in agriculture. Our research focuses primarily on bees and plant-pollinator interactions, with an applied interest in supporting pollinators and pollination in agroecosystems. To study the dynamics of these complex biological systems (from collective behavior to ecological networks), we also focus on developing low-cost, scalable techniques for experimental automation, data collection, and analysis.
Our current research interests include: (1) How do social traits (e.g., colony size, phenotypic composition, etc.) affect robustness to environmental stressors in bumblebees? (2) How do environmental stressors interact (e.g., pesticide exposure and extreme temperatures), and what are the organismal-scale processes (e.g., physiology and behavior) underlying these interactions? (3) How will elevated atmospheric CO2 alter the nutritional landscape for pollinators? and (4) How does fine-scale spatial (e.g., landscape composition) and temporal (i.e., phenology and weather) variation drive patterns of plant-pollinator interactions in agroecosystems?
Publications
Online Profiles
Recent Publications
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Current biology : CB. pmid:42407438, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2026.06.002
A central challenge in predicting biological responses to climate change is bridging the mismatch between coarse changes in climate and the fine-scale environments organisms experience.¹^(,)² Behavior plays a crucial, understudied role in bridging these scales. For small ectotherms like pollinating insects, behavioral responses to microclimate variation can buffer or amplify thermal exposure, generating temperature differences that meet or exceed mean climate warming.³^(,)⁴^(,)⁵^(,)⁶^(,)⁷…
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The Journal of animal ecology. pmid:42331731, doi:10.1111/1365-2656.70300
Plant-pollinator communities are critical for biodiversity, ecosystem function and human well-being. Yet our ability to predict divergent species responses to environmental change, the risk of abrupt collapse, or the potential for recovery in plant-pollinator systems remains limited. Here, we argue that individual variation within species may play a critical but underappreciated role in shaping the sensitivity, robustness and resilience of animal pollinators and plant-pollinator communities. We…
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Scientific reports. pmid:38877021, pmc:PMC11178917, doi:10.1038/s41598-024-63967-z
Elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (eCO(2)) can affect plant growth and physiology, which can, in turn, impact herbivorous insects, including by altering pollen or plant tissue nutrition. Previous research suggests that eCO(2) can reduce pollen nutrition in some species, but it is unknown whether this effect is consistent across flowering plant species. We experimentally quantified the effects of eCO(2) across multiple flowering plant species on plant growth in 9 species and pollen chemistry…
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Proceedings. Biological sciences. pmid:37464757, pmc:PMC10354472, doi:10.1098/rspb.2023.0555
Social bees are critical for supporting biodiversity, ecosystem function and crop yields globally. Colony size is a key ecological trait predicted to drive sensitivity to environmental stressors and may be especially important for species with annual cycles of sociality, such as bumblebees. However, there is limited empirical evidence assessing the effect of colony size on sensitivity to environmental stressors or the mechanisms underlying these effects. Here, we examine the relationship between…
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Proceedings. Biological sciences. pmid:33975481, pmc:PMC8113907, doi:10.1098/rspb.2020.2512
Male butterflies in the hyperdiverse tribe Eumaeini possess an unusually complex and diverse repertoire of secondary sexual characteristics involved in pheromone production and dissemination. Maintaining multiple sexually selected traits is likely to be metabolically costly, potentially resulting in trade-offs in the evolution of male signals. However, a phylogenetic framework to test hypotheses regarding the evolution and maintenance of male sexual traits in Eumaeini has been lacking. Here, we…
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Science advances. pmid:32582845, pmc:PMC7292639, doi:10.1126/sciadv.aay6169
Most cycads engage in brood-site pollination mutualisms, yet the mechanism by which the Cycadales entice pollination services from diverse insect mutualists remains unknown. Here, we characterize a push-pull pollination mechanism between a New World cycad and its weevil pollinators that mirrors the mechanism between a distantly related Old World cycad and its thrips pollinators. The behavioral convergence between weevils and thrips, combined with molecular phylogenetic dating and a meta-analysis…
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Biology letters. pmid:32315595, pmc:PMC7211451, doi:10.1098/rsbl.2020.0103
Wind is a critical factor in the ecology of pollinating insects such as bees. However, the role of wind in determining patterns of bee abundance and floral visitation rates across space and time is not well understood. Orchid bees are an important and diverse group of neotropical pollinators that harvest pollen, nectar and resin from plants. In addition, male orchid bees collect volatile scents that they store in special chambers in their hind legs, and for which the wind-based dispersal of…
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Science (New York, N.Y.). pmid:30409882, doi:10.1126/science.aat1598
Neonicotinoid pesticides can negatively affect bee colonies, but the behavioral mechanisms by which these compounds impair colony growth remain unclear. Here, we investigate imidacloprid’s effects on bumblebee worker behavior within the nest, using an automated, robotic platform for continuous, multicolony monitoring of uniquely identified workers. We find that exposure to field-realistic levels of imidacloprid impairs nursing and alters social and spatial dynamics within nests, but that these…
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eLife. pmid:30117804, pmc:PMC6193762, doi:10.7554/eLife.37166
Lab organisms are valuable in part because of large-scale experiments like screens, but performing such experiments over long time periods by hand is arduous and error-prone. Organism-handling robots could revolutionize large-scale experiments in the way that liquid-handling robots accelerated molecular biology. We developed a modular automated platform for large-scale experiments (MAPLE), an organism-handling robot capable of conducting lab tasks and experiments, and then deployed it to conduct…
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Nature communications. pmid:29855478, pmc:PMC5981323, doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04598-7
The original version of the Article contained incorrect citation information in reference 67. The reference should read “Russell, A. L., Morrison, S. J., Moschonas, E. H. & Papaj, D. R. Patterns of pollen and nectar foraging specialization by bumblebees over multiple timescales using RFID. Sci. Rep. 7, 1-13 (2017).” This error has now been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.
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Nature communications. pmid:29615611, pmc:PMC5882771, doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03561-w
Individuals in social insect colonies cooperate to perform collective work. While colonies often respond to changing environmental conditions by flexibly reallocating workers to different tasks, the factors determining which workers switch and why are not well understood. Here, we use an automated tracking system to continuously monitor nest behavior and foraging activity of uniquely identified workers from entire bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) colonies foraging in a natural outdoor environment….
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Interface focus. pmid:28163878, pmc:PMC5206605, doi:10.1098/rsfs.2016.0086
Natural environments are characterized by variable wind that can pose significant challenges for flying animals and robots. However, our understanding of the flow conditions that animals experience outdoors and how these impact flight performance remains limited. Here, we combine laboratory and field experiments to characterize wind conditions encountered by foraging bumblebees in outdoor environments and test the effects of these conditions on flight. We used radio-frequency tags to track…
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The Journal of experimental biology. pmid:27436135, doi:10.1242/jeb.137976
Landing is an important but understudied behavior that flying animals must perform constantly. In still air, insects decelerate smoothly prior to landing by employing the relatively simple strategy of maintaining a constant rate of image expansion during their approach. However, it is unclear whether insects employ this strategy when faced with challenging flight environments. Here, we tested the effects of wind on bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) landing on flowers. We find that bees’ approach…
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The Journal of experimental biology. pmid:26333927, doi:10.1242/jeb.121293
Locomotion through structurally complex environments is fundamental to the life history of most flying animals, and the costs associated with movement through clutter have important consequences for the ecology and evolution of volant taxa. However, few studies have directly investigated how flying animals navigate through cluttered environments, or examined which aspects of flight performance are most critical for this challenging task. Here, we examined how body size, acceleration and obstacle…
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PloS one. pmid:26332211, pmc:PMC4558030, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0136487
A fundamental challenge common to studies of animal movement, behavior, and ecology is the collection of high-quality datasets on spatial positions of animals as they change through space and time. Recent innovations in tracking technology have allowed researchers to collect large and highly accurate datasets on animal spatiotemporal position while vastly decreasing the time and cost of collecting such data. One technique that is of particular relevance to the study of behavioral ecology…
Selected Publications
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Presentations
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Teaching
Courses Taught
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