CHICAGO—One of the most important factors for human survival is often the most overlooked—insect pollinators. Bees help to pollinate the fruits and vegetables that we eat everyday. Without bees, human civilization would soon face severe food shortages.
People who grow fruits and vegetables at home will surely notice a problem if their garden isn’t graced by enough bees, and enough of the right type of bees at the right time. Biologists at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) are working to simplify urban agriculture by removing the many variables involved in pollination.
“Pollination service is the thing that most people who aren’t really conservation-minded really care about. They want to know whether or not they’re going to get a cucumber,” said University of Illinois at Chicago assistant professor Emily Minor in a recent UIC press release.
Minor, an assistant professor of Biological Sciences, and visiting research assistant professor Kevin Matteson recently received a $150,000 grant to determine how different landscapes and neighborhoods affect the variety and number of insect pollinators. Matteson recently led a limited but comparable study in New York during his postdoctoral research.
“People have studied this in agricultural areas. Putting it together in an urban area is new,” continued Minor.
The two researchers will travel to neighborhoods throughout Chicago in a flatbed truck loaded with purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea), eggplant, and flowering cucumbers to determine which bees visit and how long they stay. The three plants chosen represent specimens that require specific bee species to pollinate. Eggplant, for example, needs the bumblebee. Their buzz releases pollen when they visit.
But flowers are only one part of the equation for pollinators. “Open patches of soil are important too,” said Matteson, who notes that most bees are soil-nesting species.
Many of the additional variables including time of day will be recorded with a variety of surveys to determine the bees’ visiting patterns. The control will include flowers wrapped in mesh cloth to prohibit pollination.
“We predict the number of different bee species at a location will be related to the consistency of pollination across the three plant species. There may be some places where there are lots and lots of individual bees, but representing only a few species, and that some plants have very low pollination rates while others do just fine,” Minor said in a statement.
In addition to the mobile pollination experiment, the team will also survey nearby flowers in the test neighborhoods to determine if nearby flowers are attracting certain bees. Bee diversity and their affinity to certain plants is another variable to determine the best place to grow certain fruits and vegetables.
The ultimate goal of the project is to determine which pollinators urban settings most require. Researchers say the study will help neighborhood gardeners achieve higher levels of success with urban botany.
“I am hopeful that this work can make a real difference to urban agricultural efforts, and more generally, contribute knowledge to the growing field of urban ecology. And I am always excited to see what story emerges from the data, Minor told the Epoch Times. “Right now, we don’t know exactly what we will find.”
People who grow fruits and vegetables at home will surely notice a problem if their garden isn’t graced by enough bees, and enough of the right type of bees at the right time. Biologists at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) are working to simplify urban agriculture by removing the many variables involved in pollination.
“Pollination service is the thing that most people who aren’t really conservation-minded really care about. They want to know whether or not they’re going to get a cucumber,” said University of Illinois at Chicago assistant professor Emily Minor in a recent UIC press release.
Minor, an assistant professor of Biological Sciences, and visiting research assistant professor Kevin Matteson recently received a $150,000 grant to determine how different landscapes and neighborhoods affect the variety and number of insect pollinators. Matteson recently led a limited but comparable study in New York during his postdoctoral research.
“People have studied this in agricultural areas. Putting it together in an urban area is new,” continued Minor.
The two researchers will travel to neighborhoods throughout Chicago in a flatbed truck loaded with purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea), eggplant, and flowering cucumbers to determine which bees visit and how long they stay. The three plants chosen represent specimens that require specific bee species to pollinate. Eggplant, for example, needs the bumblebee. Their buzz releases pollen when they visit.
But flowers are only one part of the equation for pollinators. “Open patches of soil are important too,” said Matteson, who notes that most bees are soil-nesting species.
Many of the additional variables including time of day will be recorded with a variety of surveys to determine the bees’ visiting patterns. The control will include flowers wrapped in mesh cloth to prohibit pollination.
“We predict the number of different bee species at a location will be related to the consistency of pollination across the three plant species. There may be some places where there are lots and lots of individual bees, but representing only a few species, and that some plants have very low pollination rates while others do just fine,” Minor said in a statement.
In addition to the mobile pollination experiment, the team will also survey nearby flowers in the test neighborhoods to determine if nearby flowers are attracting certain bees. Bee diversity and their affinity to certain plants is another variable to determine the best place to grow certain fruits and vegetables.
The ultimate goal of the project is to determine which pollinators urban settings most require. Researchers say the study will help neighborhood gardeners achieve higher levels of success with urban botany.
“I am hopeful that this work can make a real difference to urban agricultural efforts, and more generally, contribute knowledge to the growing field of urban ecology. And I am always excited to see what story emerges from the data, Minor told the Epoch Times. “Right now, we don’t know exactly what we will find.”
