Connecticut State The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station

Tracy Zarrillo

Department of Entomology

The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
123 Huntington Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Voice: (203) 974-8473 Fax: (203) 974-8502
E-mail: Tracy.Zarrillo@ct.gov

Expertise: 

Tracy has expertise in native bee taxonomy, native bee monitoring and survey techniques, and pollinator conservation.  She can do species-level identifications for the apoid fauna in the northeastern U.S., specializing in the genera Bombus, Andrena, Ceratina, and Lasioglossum.

 

Education:

B.S., Biology, Southern Connecticut State University, 1992

M.S., Biology, Southern Connecticut State University, 2016

 

Training Received in Wild Bee Identification and Pollinator Conservation:

  • Native Bee Identification, Ecology, Research and Monitoring Course: July 5-10, 2010, FWS National Conservation Training Center, West Virginia.
  • Pollinator Conservation Planning Short Course: July 6, 2011, University Of Rhode Island, Kingston, Xerces Society.
  • Dialictus Identification Course: March 23-25, 2012, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
 
Teaching Workshops:
  • Pollinator Conservation Planning Short Course, Xerces Society:  April 12, 2012, Tolland County Agricultural Center, Vernon, Connecticut.
  • Northeastern Bee Identification Workshop, March 22-24, 2013, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts.
  • Bumble Bee Identification Workshop, March 21, 2014, The Connecticut Entomological Society, University of Connecticut, Connecticut.

Station Career:

Agricultural Research Assistant II, 1992-1994

Agricultural Research Assistant III, 1994-1998

Agricultural Research Technician I, 1998-2014

Agricultural Research Technician II, 2014-2022

Assistant Agricultural Scientist I, 2022-present

 

Responsibilities and Past Research:

Ms. Zarrillo has provided assistance in the field and laboratory for research projects dealing with bee pollination, pesticides, floral preference trials, and wild bee diversity in Connecticut. She initiated and coordinated the Wild Bee Monitoring Program in Connecticut, which included cooperators at the White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield, the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Westbrook, and CAES campuses around the state. She has examined wild bee communities living in Connecticut's maritime habitats and has identified potential threats due to climate change and non-native plant species. In addition to her bee work, she has also assisted in natural history surveys of longhorn beetles, exotic insect surveys, and surveys of bio-control agents for emerald ash borer throughout Connecticut.

 

Focus of Current Research:

Ms. Zarrillo published a checklist of the wild bee species of Connecticut in 2025 and is currently writing a checklist of the wild bee species in New England and also the United States with various collaborators. She is also collaborating with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the University of Rhode Island in projects that are monitoring the response of wild bees to habitat restorations in Connecticut and Rhode Island. In addition, she is working with the University of Rhode Island to develop a pollinator seed mix for southern New England. She is working with the Northeast Seed Collective studying certain specialist bee species that visit ecotype host plants and conducts surveys for rare and/or threatened wild bee species throughout the state.

 

Publications:

  • Zarrillo, T.A., Stoner, K.A., and Ascher, J.S. (2025). Biodiversity of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila) in Connecticut (USA). Zootaxa, 5586(1), 1-138. doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5586.1.1

  • Mukhtar, S., Hassani, M.A., Zarrillo, T., Cui, Z., Sundin, G.W. and Zeng, Q. (2024). The role of foraging pollinators in assembling the flower microbiota and transmitting the fire blight pathogen Erwinia amylovora. Environmental Microbiology, 26, e16702. doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.16702
  • deMaynadier, P., Schlesinger, M.D., Hardy, S.P., McFarland, K.P., Saucier, L., White, E.L., Zarrillo, T.A. and Young, B.E. (2024). Insect pollinators: The time is now for identifying species of greatest conservation need. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 48, e1537. doi.org/10.1002/wsb.1537

  • Dorey, J.B., Fischer, E.E., Chesshire, P.R., Nava-Bolaños, A., O’Reilly, R.L., Bossert, S., Collins, S.M., Lichtenberg, E.M., Tucker, E.M., Smith-Pardo, A., Falcon-Brindis, A., Guevara, D.A., Ribeiro, B., de pedro, D., Pickering, J., Keng-Lou J.H., Parys, K.A., McCabe, L.M., Matthew S. Rogan, M.S., Minckley, R.L., Velazco, J.E.S., Griswold, T., Zarrillo, T.A, Jetz, W., Sica, V.V., Orr, M.C., Guzman, L.M., Ascher, J.S., Hughes, A.C., and & Neil S. Cobb, N.S. (2023). A globally synthesised and flagged bee occurrence dataset and cleaning workflow. Scientific Data, 10(1), p.747. doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02626-w

  • Zarrillo, T. A. and K. A. Stoner. (2019). The bee fauna of an Atlantic coastal plain tidal marsh community in Southern New England, USA. J. Melittology, 86, 1-34. doi.org/10.17161/jom.v0i86.7334
  • Zarrillo. T., J. S. Ascher, J. Gibbs, and K. Stoner. (2016). New and Noteworthy Records of Bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila) for Connecticut. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 89(2), 138-157.
  • Zarrillo, T. (2016).  A Survey of the bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) of Grass Island Preserve, Connecticut.  M. S. Thesis. Southern Connecticut State University; New Haven, Connecticut; 127 pp.
  • Zarrillo, T. (2014). Connecticut Bumble Bee Guide. https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/CAES/DOCUMENTS/Publications/pollinators/CTBombusGuidepdf.pdf
  • Droege, S. and Zarillo, T., (Ed.). (2015). The Very Handy Manual: How to Catch and Identify Bees and Manage a Collection. USGS Native Bee and Inventory Monitoring Lab. http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/nativebees/Handy%20Bee%20Manual/The%20Very%20Handy%20Manual%20-%202015.pdf