“Become a pollinator paparazzi”–my rough translation of the tag line from the Spipoll website. Citizen science is definitely a trendy buzzword in the conservation community these days. The idea that we, the scientists, can’t tackle the counting and sorting of all of the world’s species, so we should ask for a little public participation. I like the idea because I think it’s good to start bridging our scientific research with public interest and enthusiasm. But I also believe that, in years to come, citizen science initiatives have the potential to become exciting mobilizing opportunities, that could create some relevant data. But to see the current state of the art, I am featuring two web-based programs–Bee Spotter and Spipoll–that aim to track insect pollinators by digital photography.
SPIPOLL is a French monitoring program launched by the Natural History Museum in Paris. This initiative is funded by the French government within the framework of Biodiversity 2010, in recognition of the International Year of Biodiversity. Participants, called spipolliens, photograph pollinating insects and upload them to the website. With the photographs, participants also record the time and location. At the website, they are given instruction on IDENTIFYING the insect as well as the flower it was visiting. They have created a standardized protocol for pollinator-watching–a long version and a “flash” version–that instructs participants to “sample” from a particular flower in order to see what different types of insects arrive.
Bee Spotter is an American citizen-science program based at the University of Illinois in Urbana that calls on residents of Illinois to become bee spotters, by photographing bumble bees (11 species) and honey bees (1 species). Participants are provided with color guides for the identification of bumble bee species, and each identification is then verified by a taxonomist. In this way, participants can improve in their ability to identify the bees. In the interest of full disclosure, I helped in the creation of the site (I wrote about Making a Bee-friendly Garden), which sparked my current, enduring interest in pollinator awareness and outreach.
With just these two sites, you can see some varying ideas on how to do citizen science. One is limited to the bumble bees of Illinois while the other covers all of the insects of France! I personally think that the SPIPOLL site is over-ambitious in their hope that people will be able to identify an insect to species based on a photograph. I have a PhD in entomology (though I am by no means a taxonomist), but my brain goes numb just thinking about the task. To their credit, they provide a lot of supporting material, which makes their site a great resource for an educator–teacher, camp counselor, whatever–who wants to incorporate this program into their curriculum. And I should add, the website is so gorgeous–all luscious pink, orange and green– that just going to the site makes me feel a little bit better about the bees!
In the end, I prefer the approach of BeeSpotter, to keep thing simple and build a strong community of citizen scientists, which it has over the years. The funny thing with web-based citizen science is that it captures a whole new slice of the population. Some of the first BeeSpotters were admittedly not very interested in the insects themselves, but just wanted to try their hand at photographing small thing, like insects. Others, like an elementary school class in Urbana, end up learning about insects, nature and technology. In the end though, their curiosity gets the better of them. What have these little bugs been up to all along? Next thing they know, they’re stopping on the sidewalk to watch a bee collect nectar from a city flower bed. Like the Spipoll site says, be forewarned: photographing insects can become an addiction!
The Science of Pollinators 