"Bee city": Using citizen science to monitor pollinator abundance in cultivated and uncultivated green spaces in Kamloops, B.C.

Pollinators provide critical ecosystem services, and are facing worldwide declines, caused in part by habitat loss due to urbanization. With the collaboration of the Thompson-Shuswap Master Gardeners Association’s pollinator monitoring citizen science project, this project surveyed pollinators in both cultivated and uncultivated green spaces within Kamloops, BC. Pollinators were identified into functional groups or guilds based morphological characteristics that could be distinguished in the field by citizen scientists. The purpose of this project was threefold: (1) to characterize the consistency of citizen science surveys of pollinators over the course of a growing season, (2) to compare the floral resources for pollinators in cultivated and uncultivated green spaces within the city of Kamloops, and (3) to compare the abundance of pollinator guilds observed in cultivated and uncultivated green spaces over the growing season and determine if observed differences were correlated with observed differences in floral resources. The results indicated that citizen science was effective in monitoring bee abundance and diversity in Kamloops. There were drastic differences in flowering plant genera between cultivated and uncultivated green spaces, and significantly higher abundances of flowering plants in cultivated green spaces than uncultivated green spaces. This project also demonstrated that cultivated green spaces within Kamloops supported a greater numerical abundance of pollinators, especially during the month of August, than uncultivated natural areas within the city. This suggests that cultivated green spaces may have served as a refuge from seasonal drought for some native bees. All bee groups and flies were positively associated with bee flower abundance, and specific flowering plant genera were associated with high pollinator abundance. Because of this, it is important to advocate for the planting of native and exotic plants in cultivated green spaces, such as home gardens and city parks, and to support the restoration of native plant communities in uncultivated green spaces. Given the increasing urbanization faced by many landscapes, the results of my research provide preliminary evidence identifying that while not necessarily supporting all native pollinators, appropriately planted urban landscapes may play an important role mitigating urbanization’s negative impact.