[Pollinator] for discussion: should honeybees be allowed into conservation/protected areas?

[beespotter at mste.illinois.edu]

Hello all,

I am the webmaster for BeeSpotter (http://beespotter.org), a citizen-science
project which derives its genesis directly from the report cited below (from
the passages cited, even).  We are now in our fifth year and have collected
thousands of photos of bees from citizen-scientists across the state of
Illinois.  We would love to broaden the scope of our project to a national
-- or even international -- level.  The difficulty is that we do not
currently have the expertise in-house to identify bees outside of our own
geographical area.  If anyone would be interested in getting involved, or
knows anyone who would be interested, we would love to talk with them.
Thank you for any suggestions you can offer!

     --Michael--

============== Michael McKelvey ==============
Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education
University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana
MSTE website: http://mste.illinois.edu
{Office #: 217-244-7148} {Cell #: 217-621-5783}
=========== mmckelve at mste.illinois.edu ===========
Current diversion: Scott Pilgrim (http://scottpilgrimthemovie.com/)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: pollinator-bounces+beespotter=mste.illinois.edu at lists.sonic.net
> [mailto:pollinator-bounces+beespotter=mste.illinois.edu at lists.sonic.net]
On
> Behalf Of Peter Loring Borst
> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 2:00 PM
> To: pollinator at lists.sonic.net
> Subject: Re: [Pollinator] for discussion: should honeybees be allowed into
> conservation/protected areas?
> 
> > Does any one have data on this topic?
> 
> I have in my hand a copy of the 326 page tome:
> STATUS OF POLLINATORS IN NORTH AMERICA,
> Copyright 2007 by the National Academy of Sciences
> 
> In it they state:
> 
> Little is known about the status of most wild pollinators in North America
> because there is seldom a historical baseline with which modern data can
> be compared. The committee notes that systematic, thorough monitoring
> programs in Europe have revealed dramatic declines in pollinator abundance
> and diversity; there are no comparable North American programs.
> 
> The European experience demonstrates that monitoring is needed
> to document changes in populations and diversity, and that monitoring
> programs profit from contributions by citizen-scientists. The quality and
> validity of the information obtained by citizen-scientists' monitoring
should
> be tested and calibrated against professional science monitoring.
> 
> Conservation and restoration are crucial to the preservation of pollinator
> populations and diversity, but more must be learned about pollinator
> biology. Research on the basic biology and ecology of wild pollinators is
> inadequate.
> 
> Recommendation: Because of the importance of pollination as an ecosystem
> service in both agricultural and natural ecosystems, the National Science
> Foundation and USDA should recognize pollination as a cross-cutting
> theme in their competitive grant programs and work together to integrate
> research that ranges from the genomics of honey bees and the systematics
> and ecology of wild pollinators to the effects of global climate change on
> pollinator-plant interactions.
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Peter Borst
> 
> 
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