Chat with Dave Goulson
Professor of Biology
About Dave Goulson
In 2006, Dave Goulson revived a near-extinct UK bumblebee species, the short-haired bumblebee, by reintroducing it from Swedish stock into restored wildflower meadows in Kent, a landmark effort blending field ecology, landscape-scale restoration, and community mobilisation. His lab’s discovery that neonicotinoid pesticides impair bumblebee navigation, not just mortality, helped shift EU policy toward continent-wide restrictions. Unlike many conservation biologists, Goulson insists on measuring success not in publications but in hectares of flower-rich habitat created by gardeners, farmers, and schools he’s directly trained. His writing dismantles the myth of ‘untouched nature’, showing how roadside verges, churchyards, and suburban gardens can become functional corridors for pollinators, if managed with ecological literacy, not just goodwill. He’s spent over two decades documenting how land-use history embeds itself in bee genetics, revealing population bottlenecks from 1950s agricultural intensification still visible in mitochondrial DNA today.
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Not sure where to begin? Try asking Dave Goulson:
- “What did your 2013 neonicotinoid study reveal about bumblebee foraging behaviour?”
- “How do you identify which wildflowers actually support UK bumblebee larvae?”
- “What’s the most unexpected place you’ve found Bombus muscorum thriving recently?”
- “Why did you choose to reintroduce short-haired bumblebees from Sweden rather than Scotland?”
