2013 is the third year of the Urban Pollinators Project and in
the run up to our final field season this year now is a good time to update you
on some of the fieldwork we’ve carried out in previous years and let you know
about work in progress.
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| The Bristol team sampling on farmland near Bristol |
In the first year of
the project (2011) we sampled urban areas, farmland and nature reserve sites
across the UK from Dundee in the north to Southampton in the south to see how
pollinator communities in urban areas compare to other habitats. Farmland makes
up to 70 % of the UK land area while urban areas cover roughly 7 % of the UK.
Within each of our four study regions (Scotland, Northern
England, Southern England, Western England/Wales) we selected 12 sets of farmland,
nature reserve and urban sites, giving a total of 36 sites across the UK. Our
teams carried out pollinator and plant surveys at each site between May and
September 2011. At the end of the summer the field teams had sampled over 10
000 insects and had identified thousands of plants.
We are currently in the process of preparing the data for submission
to a scientific journal and will provide a summary of the results as soon as
the paper is accepted. So watch this space if you are interested in finding out
more.
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| Sampling in Water`s Edge LNR, Hull |
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| Fyfield Down NNR near Swindon |
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| A woodland nature reserve near Leeds |
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| Counting flowers in a field full of Phacelia near Leeds |
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| Flower-rich pasture near Southampton |
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| Bristol team sampling a front garden |
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| Mark found a pollinator in Southampton |
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| The BBC was visiting the Bristol team in 2011, filming pollinator sampling in front gardens |
In the second year
of the project (2012) we had a closer look at urban habitats to investigate where
pollinators like to forage and what flowers they feed on. We concentrated on four
cities/towns in the UK, namely Edinburgh and Leeds in the North, Bristol in the
Southwest and Reading in the Southeast. In each of these areas we recorded pollinator
activity and flowering plants in gardens, allotments, urban nature reserves,
cemeteries & churchyards, parks and other public green spaces, on road
verges, pavements and even in car parks. Pavements and car parks often seem to
be a barren desert of concrete and tarmac but cracks in pavements or shrubs and
trees in car parks can still provide floral resources for pollinators. Despite the wettest summer for 100 years we
managed to be out and about in between the rain and to sample nearly 4000 insects.
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| Counting daisies in Edinburgh |
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| Garden sampling in Leeds |
The most challenging aspect of last year’s field season
(beside the weather) was the garden sampling as we had to find 400 garden
owners (100 per city) willing to let us into their gardens to sample
pollinators. Luckily we found enough interested people, and in the end even had
to refuse some garden owners because we had too many! We found that many
gardens seemed to be attractive to pollinators, often with lots of
pollinator-friendly flowers on offer. You cannot really do anything wrong if
you plant single-flowered plants and if you avoid double flowered and highly
bred plants. From our general observations cotoneaster, lavender, michaelmas
daisies (Aster), bellflowers (Campanula), cranesbills (Geranium) and ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum) were visited often by
insect pollinators. Plants that were less visited were pansies, begonias, bedding
geraniums, double flowered chrysanthemums and double flowered dahlia varieties
such as the cactus dahlias.You can also leave some
areas of your lawn a bit longer which will encourage pollinator-friendly
wildflowers such as white clover, dandelions and buttercups.
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| Ben counting flowers in Bristol |
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| Pierre with a bumblebee in Edinburgh |
For some suggestions of what to plant in your garden for
early and late pollinators have a look here:
http://www.urbanpollinators.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/early-spring-flowers-for-pollinators.html
http://www.urbanpollinators.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/late-flowers-for-pollinators.html
Also have a look at our project newsletter: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/biology/research/ecological/community/pollinators/news/2013/springnewsletter.pdf
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| Sam and Peter look for pollinators in a garden in Reading |
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| An allotment site in Reading with lots of flowers |
Allotments were another good habitat for pollinators, and often
had high numbers of insects recorded. We noticed that quite a lot of people
like to grow some flowers in between their vegetables to attract pollinators
and other beneficial insects. Fruit trees and soft fruit bushes such as apples,
currants and gooseberries provide pollen and nectar in spring and are often important
food sources for early emerging bumblebees and solitary bees. A lot of vegetables such as beans, courgettes
and pumpkins have flowers which provide pollen and nectar in summer. We also noticed
that some ‘weeds’ appear to be very popular with pollinators, including dandelions,
sow thistles and buttercups. Often allotments are surrounded by flowering
hedgerows which offer an additional food source for pollinators. Long grass, often
found under hedgerows or on abandoned plots, can provide nesting habitat for
bumblebees and food plants for the larvae (caterpillars) of some butterflies
such as meadow brown, gatekeeper, skipper and speckled wood.
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| The Leeds team is counting flowers |
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| Abandoned plots can be good for pollinators |
If you want to plant some colourful pollinator friendly
plants on your allotment this year have a look here:
To make your allotment plot more wildlife-friendly look here
for some suggestions:
Cemeteries and church yards can support good numbers of
pollinators as well. Some of the older
sites were especially good, with diverse flower-rich meadows which were only cut
a couple of times a year.
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| Norcot Road Cemetery in Reading with lots of wildflowers |
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| Some cemeteries have flower-rich grasslands beneficial for pollinators |
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| Sampling a cemetery in Leeds |
The nature reserves we sampled in urban areas were very
variable in terms of their habitat, ranging from flower-rich meadows to dense
woodland, and not surprisingly the flower-rich meadows were often alive with
bees, bumblebees and other pollinators.
In contrast, we found hardly anything buzzing around in the dense
woodland.
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| Counting gorse flowers in Holyrood Park Nature Reserve in Edinburgh |
Although we recorded pollinators visiting flowers in other
urban habitats such as parks and road verges we noticed that numbers of
pollinators seen depended a lot on the cutting regime of the councils. For
example, in spring some of the road verges in Reading were full of flowers. Daisies,
dandelions, clovers and hawk`s- beards were the most common among these and provided
a good food source for pollinators. But by summer the road verges had all been
cut and were devoid of life.
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| Are there any bees in this park in Leeds? |
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| Counting cow parsley in a park in Edinburgh |
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| Sampling in a park in Edinburgh. But where are the flowers? |
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| Mark is wrestling with the quadrat for counting flowers on a road verge in Leeds |
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| Neglected places often have pollinator-friendly wildflowers |
Even habitats you’d think of being pollinator un-friendly,
such as pavements and car parks, sometimes had flowers which attracted pollinators.
Flowering weeds growing out of cracks and overhanging garden plants provide flowers
along pavements.
Flower beds and flowering shrubs in car parks provide a splash
of colour and can lure pollinators to an otherwise uninviting habitat. Common
pollinator-friendly shrubs in car parks included boxleaf honeysuckle (Lonicera nitida), shrubby cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa) and
cotoneaster.
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| Counting overhanging flowers on a pavement in Leeds |
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| Wildflowers can grow out of cracks in pavements |
And what are we up to
this year (2013)? As last year was so incredibly wet which limited the
amount of fieldwork we could do, we are planning to repeat the surveys of urban
habitats this year to improve our dataset.
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| Flower meadow in Victoria Recreation Ground, Reading, in 2012 |
Also have a look at some pictures of last year`s meadows:
2013 is the third year of the Urban Pollinators Project and in
the run up to our final field season this year now is a good time to update you
on some of the fieldwork we’ve carried out in previous years and let you know
about work in progress.
Really nice job!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant blog post, Nadine - brought back some good memories! Looking forward to the final year of fieldwork starting soon.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting to read up on the whole project so far! Good luck this year!
ReplyDelete