Clint Otto, PhD
Clint Otto is a Research Ecologist for the USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in Jamestown, North Dakota.
The principal goal of my research program is to investigate the impacts of land-use change on pollinator habitat and ecosystem services in the Prairie Pothole Region. Much of my research focuses on the development of decision-support tools for informing natural resource policy and management. My lab’s current research projects include modeling the effects of agricultural land-use change and grassland management on pollinator habitat and population health. In addition, my lab works with multiple federal partners to improve population monitoring of the endangered Rusty Patched bumble bee and other pollinators of conservation concern. My team also collaborates on several remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and eDNA projects designed to enhance monitoring of pollinators and their habitats on a national scale.
Professional Experience
Research Ecologist, USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Education and Certifications
Michigan State University (Ph.D.), 2012
Towson University (M.S.), 2006
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (B.S.), 2002
Science and Products
Using colony monitoring devices to evaluate the impacts of land use and nutritional value of forage on honey bee health
Why does bee health matter? The science surrounding honey bee health concerns and what we can do about it
A colony of honey bees is an amazing organism when it is healthy; it is a superorganism in many senses of the word. As with any organism, maintaining a state of health requires cohesiveness and interplay among cells and tissues and, in the case of a honey bee colony, the bees themselves. The individual bees that make up a honey bee colony deliver to the superorganism what it needs: pollen and nect
Using publicly available data to quantify plant–pollinator interactions and evaluate conservation seeding mixes in the Northern Great Plains
Concern over declining pollinators has led to multiple conservation initiatives for improving forage for bees in agroecosystems. Using data available through the Pollinator Library (npwrc.usgs.gov/pollinator/), we summarize plant–pollinator interaction data collected from 2012–2015 on lands managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and private lands enrolled in U.S. Department of Agriculture c
Assessing pollinator habitat services to optimize conservation programs
A comparison of honey bee-collected pollen from working agricultural lands using light microscopy and ITS metabarcoding
Land-use change reduces habitat suitability for supporting managed honey bee colonies in the Northern Great Plains
Taxonomic characterization of honey bee (Apis mellifera) pollen foraging based on non-overlapping paired-end sequencing of nuclear ribosomal loci
Identifying plant taxa that honey bees (Apis mellifera) forage upon is of great apicultural interest, but traditional methods are labor intensive and may lack resolution. Here we evaluate a high-throughput genetic barcoding approach to characterize trap-collected pollen from multiple North Dakota apiaries across multiple years. We used the Illumina MiSeq platform to generate sequence scaffolds fro
Climatic variation and the distribution of an amphibian polyploid complex
Science and Products
Using colony monitoring devices to evaluate the impacts of land use and nutritional value of forage on honey bee health
Why does bee health matter? The science surrounding honey bee health concerns and what we can do about it
A colony of honey bees is an amazing organism when it is healthy; it is a superorganism in many senses of the word. As with any organism, maintaining a state of health requires cohesiveness and interplay among cells and tissues and, in the case of a honey bee colony, the bees themselves. The individual bees that make up a honey bee colony deliver to the superorganism what it needs: pollen and nect
Using publicly available data to quantify plant–pollinator interactions and evaluate conservation seeding mixes in the Northern Great Plains
Concern over declining pollinators has led to multiple conservation initiatives for improving forage for bees in agroecosystems. Using data available through the Pollinator Library (npwrc.usgs.gov/pollinator/), we summarize plant–pollinator interaction data collected from 2012–2015 on lands managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and private lands enrolled in U.S. Department of Agriculture c
Assessing pollinator habitat services to optimize conservation programs
A comparison of honey bee-collected pollen from working agricultural lands using light microscopy and ITS metabarcoding
Land-use change reduces habitat suitability for supporting managed honey bee colonies in the Northern Great Plains
Taxonomic characterization of honey bee (Apis mellifera) pollen foraging based on non-overlapping paired-end sequencing of nuclear ribosomal loci
Identifying plant taxa that honey bees (Apis mellifera) forage upon is of great apicultural interest, but traditional methods are labor intensive and may lack resolution. Here we evaluate a high-throughput genetic barcoding approach to characterize trap-collected pollen from multiple North Dakota apiaries across multiple years. We used the Illumina MiSeq platform to generate sequence scaffolds fro