(Twitter, Michael Orr @mc_orr) “Biomass or abundance are not the whole story, not even half of it! Species identification is critical. We need to know what the species are to conserve them.” The original paper.
(Twitter, usnativebees @usnativebees) “Please check out our new RCN website: usnativebees.com. We will be adding a member directory + other features soon”
(Twitter, Zach Portman @zachportman) “I was interviewed about bee monitoring for the first blog post of the new RCN website. Check it out for your daily dose of controversial bee opinions”
(Twitter, Dr Manu Saunders @ManuSaunders) “It’s spring! And that means #WildPollinatorCount time. Our next count is on between 8-15 November. Find out how to participate on our website“
(EurekAlert, University of Reading) A new study found that the costs of running nationwide monitoring schemes are more than 70 times lower than the value of pollination services to the UK economy, and provide high quality scientific data at a much lower cost than running individual research projects.
(ScienceDaily, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig) Data collected by citizen science initiatives, museums and national parks is an important basis for research on biodiversity change. However, scientists found that sampling sites are oftentimes not representative, which may lead to false conclusions about how biodiversity changes. Their research calls for more objective site selection and better training for citizen scientists to prevent a site-selection bias.
(Entomology Today) “Of methods to collect bees, sweep netting vastly outperformed all other methods in terms of the number of bees and number of species… I also found that there were huge disparities in the representation of honey bees and native bees according to sampling method.”
(Entomology Today) Entomology outreach is an essential part of inviting the public to learn about and engage with insects. Frequently, graduate students are at the forefront of engaging the public in this field. However, not every graduate student is prepared to interact with a pre-entomologist, nor are they convinced that this is an important activity. Here is a beginner’s guide to initiating outreach.
(Twitter, Elaine Evans ) “Take photos of bumble bees and share on iNaturalist. If you can ID bumble bees, also keep track of your time looking and help record some other data to help us track bumble bee populations.” Check out the project website and the iNaturalist project webpage.
