Collaborating to Promote Urban Pollinator Corridors

[Claire O'Neill]

To get this discussion forum going here's a discussion that some in our GBA Citizen Science community might be interested in... I've already shared the idea of a pollinator corridor collaboration with some of you. Mind you that there's absolutely nothing original about that idea as many are doing this at other locations, but it's worth getting it out there (for our area) again.

Pollinator corridor collaboration. Wouldn't it be great if we were to collaborate together and brainstorm how to better engage our communities, and promote pollinator corridors (through efforts led both by people and organizations)? We might as well throw data into the mix and talk about the many citizen science aspects that could be paired with those initiatives.

A few things that I have in mind: We could build a map together showing those corridors and rest/feeding spots (augmented with identification of host plants). We would invite individuals, communities, organizations to add to that map. This map would be a running visualization of the state and progress of those pollinators' rest and feeding stops. Over time, it would also help us to get a sense of what is poorly 'covered'. That map combined with other efforts such as those of the Xerces Society would help raise awareness of the importance of native plants and the need to protect pollinators. For those motivated, we could tie that effort to scientific and data campaigns such as the ones empowered by the National Phenology Network (NPN), which can track both plants and insects. This would help to quantify efforts and results over time. EwA can help as we are versed in their standardized protocol and regularly help the NPN refine those protocols. There are other platforms that we could use such as iNaturalist provided that we help our communities to get good usable records for that purpose (an opportunity for all of us to teach new skills and engage communities).

Existing local efforts. There are many individual efforts right where we live. Here are a few:

▫ Some of you might know that Earthwise Aware (EwA) runs several pollinator (& arthropod) citizen science studies and initiatives in the area–e.g., at Fresh Pond, Middlesex Fells, Mass Habitat, Growing Center, etc. These EwA projects which look at arthropod occurrence, abundance, and phenology to fulfill site-specific objectives also feed national data campaigns that help climate and biodiversity science–including the Phenomismatch project, NPN's pest and invasive monitoring, and nectar connector data campaigns, etc. 

▫ The Somerville Pollinator Pots/Patches Project & Flower Visitor Survey – initiatives led by Amy Mertl (Lesley). A collaborative effort in action: Since Amy and I live in Somerville (and are both involved with our community), we co-presented our work earlier this year (📹  presentation). 

▫ There is also the Tufts Pollinator Initiative (TPI) led by Nick Dorian and his team, as well as Meadowscaping for Biodiversity led by Jean Devine and Barbara Passero.   

▫ More recently, following up on the 2020 City Nature Challenge and wanting to promote the use of iNaturalist to engage our communities while helping science with higher quality observations, a few local institutions started the Global Pollinator Project–an iNaturalist project with the partnership of the Earthwatch Institute, Earthwise Aware, Museum of Science, and Boston National Park Service Boston Harbor Islands.

There are so many more pollinator-focused projects out there! It'd be worth getting an exhaustive list so that all of us know them, as well as so that we can understand better how these efforts help one another and the 'cause' – Don't hesitate to share about your project in this thread!

Stronger and more efficient together. How can we better align and communicate so that we build and keep momentum while showing our communities that we're all in it together with them? Our communities are often lost in the sea of projects that we all put out there. They want to know that we (really) work together for a greater goal - that we cooperate rather than compete. So, in short, rather than operating in silos, we could have a much bigger and faster impact if only we wanted to join forces more consistently and collaborate more closely. 

The active season is winding down, so it's the perfect time to regroup and think together about arthropods, right?... What do you think?

Cheers! - Claire

✉ claire...@earthwiseaware.org

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[Amy Mertl]

Hi! I think this a great idea to plan some collaborative efforts around pollinator conservation in our area. Mapping pollinator corridors makes a lot of sense. One thing I and citizen scientists have noticed in doing urban transect is there are often little hot spots of pollinator activity along streets. You'll see very little activity along much of a street, then hit one yard or garden with a great collection of plants and that's where all the pollinators are. Mapping those types of spots could be interesting. Maybe even offering some certification program/signage to people who host those areas (like what Xerces does but on a local level - they could be official "waystations" along the GBA Pollinator Corridor). 

There are such simple ways to change the way we manage small urban spaces to promote insects and generally many people are open to some or all of those changes once they know about them, so there is a lot that can be done with outreach.

Thank you for getting the conversation rolling Claire!

[Suzanne Mrozak]

Sounds like a great idea to me. I’ve seen many such hot spots as I’ve been walking around my neighborhood in Roslindale and in the Arboretum. Maybe we could get the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and the Rose Kennedy Greenway involved.

Cheers,

Suzanne

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[Matt Burne]

Malden's segment of the Northern Strand trail has an increasing number of community garden plots. It would be really interesting to do some inventory work on these and grow awareness and support for more along the length of these bikeways.

What's the maximum distance between two plots to stitch together a pollinator pathway, I wonder?

Matt

[Suzanne Mrozak]

So that brings to mind The Trustees and the Boston Community Gardens.

Suzanne

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[Claire O'Neill]

Hmmm... I am not seeing Jean's reply (Jean Devine - MS4B) to the online discussion thread  and sent to Amy, I and a few others, including this group.

Adding it here for those who did not receive it as it's an important part of the thread. I'll contribute answers w.r.t. CitSci in a separate post for clarity.

Here is Jean's post:

Hi Amy and Claire - A regional group, about to be officially launched as the Mystic Charles Pollinator Pathway Group, has begun mapping native-plant pollinator gardens in the region.  This summer, about 35 native-plant garden enthusiasts, members of town sustainability organizations, and specialists from the towns of Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge, Lexington, Medford, Newton, Waltham, Watertown and Winchester started meeting on ZOOM to talk about how to promote more awareness about, and creation of, pollinator gardens in our region to increase biodiversity and wildlife habitat. Our group has open membership and meets on the second Tuesday of the month. A subcommittee of the group has already test-mapped a dozen sites and this week will be rolling out our survey  to collect information from residents about the amount of nectar, pollen and host plants they have in place now and their level of commitment to not using pesticides. Our goal is to have a baseline map of where these gardens exist now, and to identify demonstration sites that have a majority of native species that are viewable from the street.  And of course, as we build awareness of the need for functional gardens, and provide educational resources, and events, we intend to inspire more folks to go native, so as to expand this pathway.

As we were coming together, we researched peer organizations in the state, New England and nationally to determine types of certification programs,  motivation efforts and approaches. We participated in talks with Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, Richard Gegear, Western MA Pollinator Network, Pollinator Pathways Northeast, CT Pollinator Pathways, WIldones, Ambassadors from National Wildlife Federation’s NWF Backyard Habitat Program, and NOFA, which is joining forces with Western MA Pollinator Network, to launch a  state-wide hub for pollinator protection,  to be called ““Massachusetts Pollinator Network”. 

We decided to launch as a regional group, but are open to affiliations and partnerships, and will have two of our members be on the transition team advising on the formation of the Mass Pollinator Network.

I think parts of our geography overlap here.  Were you planning to map only sites where current citizen science research is planned or underway? 

Also, students from Meadowscaping for Biodiversity (MS4B) 's YEEP program, (which currently engages high school and college students in Cambridge, Belmont, Newton and Waltham), as well as students from Green Arlington could assist in mapping current and potential sites. MS4B starts a fall semester with Cambridge High School students tomorrow, so these students could start some of this work very soon...

I have included in this email my partner at MS4B, Barbara Passero, and Brucie Moulton, who heads up Sustainable Arlington and co-chairs with me the Mystic Charles Pollinator Pathway Group.  We wonder if you want to learn more or explore where what our group is doing overlaps with what you are launching?  

Thanks!  - Jean Devine

Jean Devine & Barbara Passero
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Cheers! - Claire

✉ claire.oneill@earthwiseaware.org

[Claire O'Neill]

Update on the topic after discussing with Jean (Jean Devine - MS4B) this past Monday and food for thoughts.

Thanks for contributing to this thread (the whole thread is available here). Thanks. Amy, for encouraging the effort and for proposing the idea of waystations (and certifications). Thanks, Suzanne, for raising attention to possible areas and organizations that'd be interested in such an effort. If you have contacts you might want to share this thread with those contacts. Thanks, Matt, for mentioning additional areas. I also think that your question "What's the maximum distance between two plots to stitch together a pollinator pathway, I wonder?" is very important. Amy, Nick? What do you think? 

Otherwise, I met with Jean on Monday to learn about the Mystic Charles Pollinator Pathway Group (MCPPG here for short) and the soon-to-be Massachusetts Pollinator Network. It's great to know about them! And it's great for all of us to get to know that something is in the making (see here for the high-level desc.). Jean, is there an official website page for any of these 2 networks? 

Now sharing with you all about what Jean and I discussed in a little more detail.

So... 3 items: I had one note and one question that I wanted to cover with Jean + I am thinking about that 'map':

□ Note > From a comprehensive network standpoint, corridor nodes need to include all types of nodes from private gardens to public open green spaces, parks, and reservations: Networks are in the making here and in other states. Some focus on specific types of space (private gardens, community gardens, university sites, etc.). It's all wonderful. But I think it's going to be important to have a comprehensive view of those corridors, which goes beyond specificity and also includes parks, reservations, open green spaces (city-owned and others) along the way. From a (math/graph) dynamic system or network standpoint, the larger nodes are important diversity and dispersal hubs that theoretically help build network resilience. They inform smaller nodes (gardens etc.) on the graph edges (individual corridors) and vice-versa. The point is that often, projects are disconnected and therefore do not enable easy integration and comparison of results. But we can do better and collaborate to get to a public comprehensive measurable/visualizable project while engaging our communities in a co-creative manner. A win-win situation. 

 

□ Question > Biodiversity Metrics? What are the metrics used to quantify results in terms of biodiversity in those existing pollinator networks? Or is/will biodiversity be monitored/quantified in sampled subnetworks so that we can adjust our methods and better communicate with our communities, our representatives, policymakers? Answer: not known (right?).
That's where citizen science can be a strong companion. Note that national/standardized protocols with data visualization tools are there to help, so it's definitely doable. Visually conveying phenology and biodiversity along those corridors could be really powerful. Some of us could form a task force to discuss how to implement a citsci project that would monitor/measure biodiversity in the network to get to reliable metrics that we can use state-wide and beyond. 

□ Map > Corridor map visualization for outreach and communication: We all know that visualization is key to ground an effort and to help communicate with external entities. Maps also illustrate another kind of result metrics to the public and policy-makers. If orgs already have maps–convertible in some form of geographic annotation and visualization formats–that's great! We could aggregate those maps (or layers) into a single map to have a global/synthetic view. We could come up with common acceptance criteria for nodes to get onto that map. A common denominator of the sort. So that's also a topic for discussion.

What do you think? 

PS: I suggest replying to the thread rather than to me personally so that all can benefit from the discussion (that's the point of this GBA CitSci network). If one does not want to receive the emails from this thread, you can easily change how to get notified. If you don't know how, email me which notification preference is yours: Abridged, Digest, or None (you will still be able to post and see the thread online), and I'll do that for you.

Other than that Jean and I talked about pollinators, native plants, open science, global data, and citizen science of course!... 

Have a wonderful rest of the week! 

Cheers - Claire

✉ claire...@earthwiseaware.org

[Renee Scott]

Something I've been wondering for a long time (Claire, I think you and I have talked about this), is the effectiveness of green roofs to help us for corridors. Like any other part of the corridor, it needs to have plants our pollinators need, but assuming it does, how high is too high for pollinators to go? Would they go to 5 stories? 10? Someone recommended stepping roofs up, so a high roof was surrounded by lower roofs that allowed the pollinators shorter rest stops along the way. As much as I'd love to see buildings planned around pollinators, that's unlikely so we can't count on the step effect. So how high will they go? 

Renée

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[Nick Dorian]

Hi all,

Pollinator movement in cities is woefully understudied and, as result, we actually don’t have good estimates how far apart two gardens should be to facilitate pollinator movement. 

In general, gardens within 250m are probably connected regularly by movement and those more than 1km apart are probably not regularly connected by movement. Obviously, butterflies and bees probably move different distances as do species within these broad pollinator groups. 

However, remember that bees need nesting habitat as well as flowers, so the time scale of movement to consider is important. Are pollinator pathways designed to facilitate movement within (i.e. foraging movements from a nest to flowers and back) or among years (i.e. dispersal events of females to new nesting locations)? Foraging movements are a lot more frequent than dispersal events, so it likely matters. 

Will pollinator pathways prioritize both nesting and floral resources? Foraging bees are looking for flowers whereas dispersing bees are looking for nesting sites. 

Food for thought. Great that you all are thinking about pollinator movement so early on.

-Nick 

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[Claire O'Neill]

Green roofs, and nesting vs. flora sites! Thanks, Renee and Nick for keeping the discussion going! Such great points that definitely keep us thinking. If any wants to contribute to the thread please do! 

A couple of thoughts before I get into "weekend mode"...

- I think both kinds (floral and nesting sites) are important to identify. Thanks, Nick for bringing that up! Is there another kind of site to consider (other than flora and nesting)? 

- I think green roofs should also be listed, Renee. If there are ways to qualify them as pollinator spots, then why not. This is really an important point that I forgot about. 

You made me search a little more on the topic. Here is an interesting article I just stumbled upon > Bee in the City - Designing Green Roofs for Pollinators (in The Conversation, 2017). 

All in all, there's no reason why we would not be able to show this level of detail as layers in any map that we'd want to work on. 

All the points brought up throughout the thread so far made me realize that a shared doc organizing those notes could really help. A discussion thread is great to bring those points to the surface, but it's not the best to organize those points as resources. I can start a shared doc soon (or if any other wants to do that please do). We can share the link here, open it for comment/edit suggestions so that we can make it a well-organized resource for those interested. 

As for "how high do pollinators go?". I personally don't know, although someone in that green roof article (linked above) mentioned the existence of bee populations at 32-story high in London (to verify). But here's a true fact and positive bee-trivia: I can tell you that I was surprised and relieved to learn that the beloved long-lived European honeybee hives of the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral (our most famous medieval gothic cathedral with its north and south towers as high as about 226 feet) survived the fire that took its spire and most of its roof away last year. Those hives lived under the main roof at about 98 ft. Those brave bees survived the flames and the toxic fumes of the blaze raging around. Unbelievable! While on the topic of French beehives, here's another trivia: Beehives have long sat on the roof of the Paris Opera, and the Luxembourg Gardens has had beehives since 1856. 

A great weekend to all! 

Cheers - Claire

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[Suzanne Mrozak]

Just a quick note to suggest checking out the Higher Ground Rooftop Farm at the Boston Medical Center. They have bees up there:  http://www.highergroundrooftopfarm.com/

Cheers,

Suzanne

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