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Preproposal for Native Plant Conservation Initiative
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

July, 2009

Title:    Bee Hunt! -- a study of climate change and pollination

Coordinating team:

  • John Pickering, Insect ecologist, University of Georgia (PI).
  • John Ascher, Bee biologist, American Museum of Natural History.
  • Sam Droege, Wildlife biologist, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.
  • Dennis Krusac, Endangered species specialist, USDA Forest Service.
  • Gretchen Lebuhn, Great Sunflower Project, San Francisco State University.
  • Nancy Lowe, Outreach coordinator, Discover Life.
  • Mike Mueller, Curricula development, University of Georgia.

Pollinators are vital to many native plants and to the health of most terrestrial ecosystems. They may be declining in parts of the world, and there are many endangered mutualisms involving rare plants or rare pollinators.

Our project, Bee Hunt! (http://www.discoverlife.org/bee), will partner with teachers and other participants to gather high quality data about the effects of climate change and other factors on pollinators. We have two major goals. The first is to address questions that will help us understand climate change and plant-pollinator interactions. The second, equally important, is to enhance education by mentoring high-quality ecological research.

Our proposal addresses the impact of climate change on pollination with a large network of study sites and rigorous research protocols. After an initial phase of this project, focused in Georgia, we plan to build a network of research sites across North America to monitor changes in the distribution and pheonology of pollinators and plants.

We will use tools on Discover Life (http://www.discoverlife.org) to network individuals, provide training videos, and gather data. These tools enable participants to upload images to albums, maintain and edit associated data, use identification guides, map data, and analyze them. Our projects include the Lost Ladybug Project, supported by the National Science Foundation, and the Great Sunflower project, which has 75,000 registered participants. Discover Life serves over 250,000 users monthly and has had 450 million hits since inception in 1997. Until 2013, the National Biological Information Infrastructure will provide support to it through a second 5-year cooperative agreement. We anticipate being able to have a non-federal 1:1 match.

With workshops, training videos, and Discover Life's tools, we propose to have participants follow research protocols and then upload photographs and associated information into web databases. Experts and computer programs check the identifications of specimens that we can identify from photographs and ensure data quality is high. We will share the data via the web and analyze them in conjuction with NOAA weather data and historical data from museums, herbaria, and other sources to detect changes and test hypotheses.

We are applying for a NPCI grant to fund a full-time project coordinator for 18 months, starting in January, 2010. With this support and our extensive network of partner organizations, we anticipate being able to recruit and train 1,000 teachers, primarily in Georgia. Starting on Earth Day, 2010, we will have participants collect and upload data, refine our methods and curricula, and recruit additional participants. If successful, we will seek funds for a second phase to develop a national network of study sites.

Bee Hunt! will engage K16 educators and students in original research. We will help them to create and test their own hypotheses with data they collect locally and access from our databases. We are developing associated curricula to help teachers integrate the project into their state standards for teaching science. Because of the rigorous protocols for data collection and clarity of instructions, the data are high quality and valuable to researchers. Eventually we propose to partner with K16 classes across the United States, focusing on schools with underserved populations.

Updated: 7 July, 2009
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