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From the beemonitoring list: <br><br>
To: <beemonitoring@yahoogroups.com><br>
From: Susan Waters <smwaters@uw.edu><br>
Subject: [beemonitoring] Urban Pollination Project<br><br>
Hello bee folks, <br><br>
I'm writing in hopes of publicizing some pollinator-related citizen
science research, the Urban Pollination Project
(<a href="http://www.urbanpollinationproject.org">
www.urbanpollinationproject.org</a>). Having lurked here for a long time
now (and benefiting greatly in my own research--thanks!), I think this
project might interest a lot of people on this list. We hope to spread
the word to a wide audience as we also try to secure more
funding.<br><br>
<b>The research:</b> The Urban Pollination Project quantifies a) the
diversity and abundance of bumblebees, and b) the crop yield of cherry
tomato plants (pollinated mostly by bumblebees), in urban community
gardens. We also look at landscape features (pesticide use, paved vs.
green space, etc) to see whether pollination and/or yield in a specific
community garden is correlated with these factors.<br><br>
<b>The citizen science:</b> We've recruited community garden (P-Patch)
gardeners who grow our Sungold cherry tomato plants in three treatments:
open to pollination, pollinators excluded, and supplemental pollination
with a tuning fork. (Cherry tomatoes will produce some fruits through
self-pollination, but yield rises with buzz pollinating visits from
bumblebees.)<br><br>
<b>Our successes so far:</b> <br>
In our first year, we had:<br>
--85 citizen scientist gardeners in 24 P-Patches <br>
--elementary school teachers and kids that used the project to learn
about the scientific method<br>
--numerous members of the public that attended free trainings to learn to
identify local bumblebee species <br>
--a volunteer corps of undergrads who performed pollinator observations
all summer<br>
We're analyzing the data now.<br><br>
<b>All this with zero funding</b>. We're two grad students doing this on
the side (it's not in either of our dissertations!). We're now trying to
expand and improve this project--better equipment, doubled participation,
and more types of data collection. <br>
We are trying out a new funding paradigm, and crowdfunding this project
through a science crowdfunding site,
<a href="https://www.microryza.com/">Microryza</a>. If you know anyone
who is interested, please let them know, and visit our
<a href="http://nwpollination.org/">website</a>,
<a href="https://www.microryza.com/projects/citizen-science-urban-pollination">
video</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/urbanpollination">Facebook
page</a>, or <a href="https://twitter.com/UWBees">Twitter feed</a>. Also,
we'd love to just hear from you if you have thoughts or ideas about
pursuing this type of research.<br><br>
Thanks very much. <br><br>
Best, <br>
Susan Waters<br>
University of Washington Biology <br>
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