Assessing the efficacy of citizen scientists monitoring native bees in urban areas

Abstract

With growing human population, urban areas expand, and natural spaces become more fragmented threatening the important ecosystem services provided by bee pollinators. Urbanization also provides a wealth of opportunities in the way of citizens who are willing to engage and develop strategies that improve the quality of urban areas. Knowing that pollinator conservation is a critical issue, we launched Native Bee Watch, a citizen science project to monitor bees in Fort Collins, a fast-growing urban center in northern Colorado, USA. Relying on citizen scientists presents challenges in data accuracy leading to the current study with objectives aimed to develop a protocol for accurate bee identification and determine whether citizen scientists following the protocol collect accurate data on bee diversity. The different genera of bees were grouped into eight morphospecies categories. Citizen scientists received intensive training prior to the start of the biweekly monitoring and researchers monitored during the off-weeks. We had very high volunteer retention rates and our results indicate strong correlation between citizen scientist and researcher data suggesting with intensive training and engagement, accurate data collection by citizen scientists and volunteer retention is possible. We suggest that citizen science can be a plausible option for bee monitoring at the level of morphospecies, but success will depend on the extent of volunteer engagement and training. Detailed taxonomic analyses may be necessary to formulate long term conservation planning for a location.