[Pollinator] Pollinator Digest, Vol 2700, Issue 1

Tue Sep 23 05:59:29 PDT 2025

Citizen science can't attain the same standards as professional science.
Even field or lab technicians are seldom included as authors of papers
their work contributed to. Furthermore the internet provides access to all
information under the guise of being "uncurated" when posted items are
actually curated by their popularity using the selector algorithms and the
unavoidable artificial intelligence (AI) summary consolidates the
information regardless of quality. The result of this combination of
outcomes is that any opinion posted, even disinformation now has equal
status to expert knowledge and judgement. I have found that AI is really
bad at science and overrated. I recommend that people do not use ai except
where they are intentionally using it within a controlled context. This is
a crisis for science; a return to the world as it was before Fancis Bacon,
and Francois Huber.

Considering citizen science and pollinator monitoring, I think this is a
very important opportunity to reintroduce scientific methods and the habits
of critical thinking to a wide range of motivated people. Peter mentioned
birds being more familiar to nonspecialists. The birdwatching community
acts to educate people as they strive to identify species, and they help
each other. Similarly when someone takes an interest in insect pollinators
they immediately take a positive attitude toward insects and take more
notice of the plants they pollinate. This can be encouraged into a lifelong
path of learning the identities of as many plant and animal species as they
can. Thus the citizen science projects benefit everyone.
In the process, it is essential for participants to have good guidance and
to understand their capabilities. A study should not attempt to cover all
species at once, but should select what is doable as volunteers learn.  A
well designed and communicated study plan will start with a clear problem
formulation or hypothesis, time schedule, a statement of scope and the
required abilities of participants, e.g. Participant documents should ask
"can you distinguish bees from wasps or flies?" or "Can you take good
insect photos", etc. There should be clear, easy to use data recording
forms to avoid missing information. There should be a schedule of
activities. There should be teaching/training components and evaluations of
proficiency and diligence with encouraging feedback before the actual data
collection starts and the plan should be robust enough to allow for the
departure/replacement of volunteers.  Participants should sign and date
their work and include their location.
More could be added but this is sufficient to get the framework of a well
planned and executed project.
It can be done well.

Regards

John Purdy

On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 7:05 PM Peter Bernhardt via Pollinator <
pollinator at lists.sonic.net> wrote:

> Kit:
>
> The nice thing about citizen science for tracking pollinators in Australia
> is that we needn't depend on insect projects right this minute. You're
> right,, how can people without entomological training, nets and taxonomic
> monographs track Australian bees, syrphid flies, Christmas beetles etc.?
> Ah, but you could have a citizen science program revolving around bird
> pollinators first, right? Depending on whom you cite, bird pollinators in
> Australia cover at least 5 families. Many species come into cities and
> suburbs and they forage on native plant species that have been brought into
> cultivation (banksias, eucalypts, kangaroo paws, grevilleas) as well as
> those plants surviving in suburban reserves. Here comes the good part.
> There are plenty of dependable field guides for Australian birds,
> Furthermore, ABC Science has brought urban birds to the attention of its
> viewers (see link below) and it wouldn't take much effort to slant citizens
> to watch and report on the number of lorikeets, red wattlebirds and
> silveryes on their local Eucalyptus ficifolia. Yes, I know you want people
> to report native bees but you have to start somewhere.
>
>  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EA3VNP2vJM&t=5s
>
> Peter Bernhardt
> Research Assoc. The Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis MO
>
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 2:00 PM <pollinator-request at lists.sonic.net>
> wrote:
>
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. National citizen science monitoring of native bees
>>       (Kit Prendergast)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2025 19:00:03 +1000
>> From: Kit Prendergast <kitprendergast21 at gmail.com>
>> To: beemonitoring <beemonitoring at googlegroups.com>, Bee United
>>         <beemonitoring at yahoogroups.com>, Pollinator
>>         <pollinator-bounces+bernhap2=slu.edu at lists.sonic.net>, Pollinator
>>         List-serv <pollinator at lists.sonic.net>
>> Subject: [Pollinator] National citizen science monitoring of native
>>         bees
>> Message-ID:
>>         <
>> CAN2D7pGYdhkFWYgfPawuAY+4oUrgt-u_chgGbybjsQ_pMK6AhA at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> Hi Beeple,
>>
>> I've been thinking about national citizen science monitoring protocols for
>> Australia and would like to hear anyone's experience and opinion on the
>> following please;
>>
>> Citizen science is of course a powerful tool for documenting invasive
>> species, or range extensions, but when it comes to monitoring, how can we
>> assess data in a way that ensures we get robust monitoring data?
>>
>> In Australia there is an Australian pollinator count which is not designed
>> well at all for monitoring. It's based on people choosing a plant (any
>> plant) in spring  and autumn recording for just 10 mins on this one day
>> twice a year (and could be a different plant species) how many insects in
>> pre-defined and poorly defined categories (e.g. there's no category for
>> Neopasiphaeinae, Hylaeinae and Euryglossinae, who are lumped into 'other
>> native bees', despite making up about one quarter of native bee
>> biodiversity, then there's 'stingless bees' (11 species), 'blue banded
>> bees' (14 species, but one doesn't have bands let alone blue bands) and
>> then 'other Australian bee'; ladybird beetle (which probably aren't
>> pollinators), 'native wasp' (with a photo of a non-native wasp :s),
>> European wasp , and 'butterfly, moth or skipper' (somehow skippers are not
>> butterflies?). Anyway, I don't see how anyone can possibly track the
>> abundance or diversity of native bees and other insects based on two 10
>> min
>> observation periods in the year .
>>
>> But for citizen science monitoring as a whole;
>>
>> The first issue is identifications - even with photos where we can verify,
>> it is impossible for many species to get accurate IDs, and with photos,
>> it's unlikely you'll photo every bee on a plant if it's an attractive
>> plant
>> with many visitors.
>> So you're going to get mainly insects that are easy to photograph, and not
>> get an abundance estimate, just a presence and not know whether it's one
>> or
>> 20.
>>
>> Then there is the issue of disentangling how many people are recording -
>> if
>> we see an increase in a taxon, is it just because more people are making
>> observations?
>>
>> So for those involved in POMS or any of the other UK/Ireland/USA
>> monitoring
>> projects on large scales, how can you actually get a handle even on coarse
>> levels (e.g. of a higher taxonomic group like Halictidae) of their
>> abundance when it is confounded by how many people are making
>> observations?
>> You could average number of that taxon observed over 10 mins by number of
>> observers, but it still makes it tricky to actually know how the abundance
>> of that taxon is doing, especially if you've got different areas being
>> recorded each time.
>>
>> My observation is that citizen science is best suited for tracking
>> populations of an easy to identify, single species, documenting range
>> extensions, changes in phenology, but is less suited for monitoring of
>> populations. However, there is way more funding in Australia for citizen
>> science than professional science monitoring of native bees, so I really
>> want to ensure that given the push for the former, we can actually get a
>> good handle on how our native bees are doing, not just how many people are
>> making recordings over time.
>>
>> Best,
>> Kit
>>
>> --
>> Dr Kit Prendergast
>> Native bee scientist, conservation biologist and zoologist
>> University of Southern QLD Postdoctoral Researcher (Pollination Ecology)
>> Adjunct Curtin University and Forrest Scholar Alumni
>>
>> Find native bee resources and more on my Patreon The Bee Babette:
>> https://www.patreon.com/c/TheBeeBabette
>>
>> ORCiD: *https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1164-6099
>> <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1164-6099>*
>> Research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kit-Prendergast/research
>> YouTube channel The Bee Babette: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBeeBabette
>> 'Creating a Haven for Native Bees':
>> https://www.facebook.com/CreatingaHavenforNativeBeesBook/
>> Wild Bee artwork:
>>
>> https://www.redbubble.com/people/BeeBabette/explore?asc=u&page=1&sortOrder=recent
>> Insta: @bee.babette_performer:
>> https://www.instagram.com/bee.babette_performer/?hl=en
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