Elsa Youngsteadt

Bio

Elsa uses geospatial analytics to understand urban landscapes from an insect perspective. She combines ecological fieldwork with spatial models to evaluate resource accessibility and demographic processes in complex landscapes, ultimately informing the management of rare and beneficial insects. Other interests include thermal ecology and pollination biology, particularly in the context of urbanization and climate change.

Publications

• Bee-Mediated Pollen Transport Across Five Urban Landscape Features: Buildings Are Important Barriers , ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION (2025)
• Land Use Change Consistently Reduces α- But Not β- and γ-Diversity of Bees , GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY (2025)
• Too cold to handle: Climatic constraints on arboreal ants in temperate forests , JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY (2025)
• Urbanization strengthens vertical stratification of ant nutrient preferences in a temperate forest ecosystem , PLOS ONE (2025)
• As prey and pollinators, insects increase reproduction and allow for outcrossing in the carnivorous plant Dionaea muscipula , American Journal of Botany (2024)
• Reaching new heights: Arboreal ant diversity in a North American temperate forest ecosystem , Insect Conservation and Diversity (2024)
• Urbanization drives partner switching and loss of mutualism in an ant–plant symbiosis , Ecology (2024)
• Bee species richness through time in an urbanizing landscape of the southeastern United States , Global Change Biology (2023)
• Can behaviour and physiology mitigate effects of warming on ectotherms? A test in urban ants , Journal of Animal Ecology (2023)
• Colony Structure and Redescription of Males in the Rarely Collected Arboreal Ant, Aphaenogaster mariae Forel (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) , Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington (2023)