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Buzz Flash

Measuring pollinator diversity at urban parks.

Pollinator gardens are an important addition to urban landscapes as they provide a green-way corridor that connects pollinators to their habitats. Two of Atlanta’s newest urban parks; Lindsay Street Park and Vine City Park have  recently had pollinator gardens designed and installed by the Atlanta Botanical Garden. These parks not only give a place for pollinators to rest and feed, they also provide the surrounding Atlanta neighborhoods with important community green space.

Monitoring pollinator abundance and biodiversity in new pollinator gardens is a critical step in understanding how often pollinators are visiting, and what kinds of pollinators are using the garden. This kind of monitoring can drive garden management, and also direct future pollinator garden installation.

As an initiative of the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s Conservation department, pollinator monitoring was conducted at both Lindsay Street and Vine City Parks this summer to estimate abundance and biodiversity. The monitoring was done by a team of high school students from The Paideia School, Forsyth Central High School, Villa Rica High School,  and Mays High School. The student team of 12 was led by Garden’s staff, school teachers, and Spelman University student volunteers from the Greening Youth Foundation. The project  was funded by  the Captain Planet Foundation’s eco technology grant, which awards funds for inquiry based projects in STEM fields that address environmental problems.

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Students visually count and sweep-net for target species in the bioswale at Lindsay Street Park. Photo Credit: Karan Wood, Captain Planet Foundation.

 

Students coupled traditional pollinator visitation methods, with novel molecular biology techniques to identify, record and count the pollinators present at both parks. This pollinator record will drive management at this and other parks, particularly with respect to differences in pollinator abundance found between areas planted with native pollinator friendly plants and those planted with conventional landscape plants. Additionally the data will be used to show the importance of pollinator gardens in urban areas.

The more we understand the way pollinators interact with their habitats the better we become at providing efficient usable pollinator gardens. Take a look around your pollinator garden when its in full swing and note the species visiting, you might just learn a thing or two!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Buzz Flash Hive Mind

You have to Connect to Protect!

The buzz surrounding our declining pollinators keeps getting louder and louder. The recently developed UGA Public Service and Outreach program, Connect to Protect, joins the Greater Atlanta Pollinator Partnership (GAPP) in spreading the word about the loss of our native insect diversity and providing ways to get involved. Like GAPP, Connect to Protect focuses on the opportunity that our urban areas provide for constructing pollinator habitats. The idea is to create a connected network of beautifully designed and ecologically minded landscapes within our communities. Using native plants in our landscapes acknowledges the coevolutionary relationships that have developed among plants and their insect partners over thousands of years. As a result of these partnerships, many insects have high specificity to breed or feed only on particular native plant species or families. Increasing the diversity within our landscapes can create dramatic expressions of color and texture while providing resources for wildlife. The hope is to create corridors of native plant gardens through our urban environments.

Education is the other crucial piece of the pollinator conservation puzzle. What better way to ensure a future for our ecologically crucial insects than to teach children about the fantastic world of pollination biology? Connect to Protect organizes hands-on educational programs for elementary-aged children to learn in an informal environment while getting their hands dirty. Planting pollinator gardens at schools creates accountability with garden maintenance while providing an introduction into the various career paths that biological science offers. Installation of native gardens, coupled with education programs ensures that our communities are aware of the plight of pollinators and have ways to get involved that are both fun and ecologically beneficial.

This is a call to arms! Getting involved in conservation does not require a degree in biology, nor does it require large tracts of land. We can no longer rely solely on our dwindling wildlands to support insect and plant diversity. Small pockets of native plants have the power to transform our neighborhoods into ecological havens and change the way people think about our landscapes. By focusing on the inextricable relationship between plants and pollinators, the Connect to Protect program advocates for increasing both plant and insect diversity in our expanding urban areas.

Visit the State Botanical Garden in Athens, Georgia for the Connect to Protect Native Plant Sale. A variety of native wildflowers, grasses, and forbs will be for sale on October 6th, 7th, and 8th and October 13th, 14th, 15th.

Get involved, plant a garden, and spread the word!

Guest Blog written by: Lauren Muller, UGA College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. M.S. Candidate, Horticulture

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Buzz Flash Hive Mind

Urban pollinator parks – Vine City Park.

Standing in the shadow of Mercedez Benz Stadium in Atlanta is the newly renovated Vine City Park. A greenspace project for the Vine City community, planned and constructed by the Conservation fundPark PrideCity of Atlanta, Invest Atlanta, The Arthur Blank FoundationAtlanta Botanical Garden and many other volunteers and organizations. Almost 10 years in the making this space brings a much needed park to an urban space that was once blighted by abandoned houses, and overrun with kudzu.

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Two acre plot in 2004 where the Vine City Park now stands. Photo Credit: Park Pride

The new park provides the local community with a much needed play space, and an area to enjoy the natural environment. The Atlanta Botanical Garden (ABG) has installed three pollinator beds at the park, which have been maintained and are monitored for pollinator abundance and biodiversity. It is the hope of ABG and GAPP that urban pollinator gardens such as Vine City and Lindsay Street Park will become important links in a greenway that stretches across metro Atlanta to connect pollinators to their habitats.

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The Atlanta Botanical Garden team monitors pollinator diversity and abundance at Vine City Park

 

Co-blogged by GAPP + Jataysia Daniels, Greening Youth Foundation & Atlanta Botanical Garden Conservation Intern!

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Buzz Flash Hive Mind

Pollination with a purpose. Lindsay Street Park

Lindsay Street Park has had quite a transformation. This is the first park in English Avenue, a historic Atlanta neighborhood which is currently undergoing a large number of innovative community projects to revitalize the area. The renovation of the park was led by the Conservation Fund, with help from partners Trees Atlanta, Park Pride,  Atlanta Botanical Gardens, members of the English Avenue Community, and many other organizations and volunteers.

However this park is so much more than a pollinator garden, it’s a park with a purpose. Lindsay Street Park functions as an important place for the local community to gather and appreciate nature, in a neighborhood that is devoid of friendly green space. The park also serves to combat storm water runoff, and mitigate water pollution, issues that have been prevalent in the aging neighborhood.

Community members and project collaborators have been quick to comment on the importance of the Lindsay Street Park restoration, and the clear benefits it provides  to the English Avenue neighborhood. Greening Youth Foundation’s Whitney Jaye remarks that “we need green space and community input , to improve mental, physical and emotional health”.  Tony Torrence founder and CEO of the Atlanta Community Improvement Association  has also commented on the history of the neighborhood, the importance of the parks restoration, and its link to the local peoples culture and identity. Torrence remarks, “People used to be baptized in this creek, and now it is polluted”.

The park  aims to mitigate the amount of storm water runoff that reaches the Proctor Creek Watershed through rain garden plantings, implementation of a bioswale, and decreasing the amount of impervious surfaces present in the community.

The Lindsay Street Park success story hinges on the commitment of dedicated partners, and participation by the local community members, to build a truly exceptional green space that will benefit both pollinators and humans!

 

 

Photo L: Tony Torrence displaying a piece of history; a brick found on site made at the Chattahoochee Brick Company which often used forced convict labour to produce over 200,000 bricks a day. Images courtesy of Whitney Flanagan, Dr. Jennifer Cruse Sanders

Photo R: Dr. Jennifer Cruse Sanders from the Atlanta Botanical Garden and Greening Youth Foundation interns and employees Whitney Jaye, Alagia Felix, Micheal Hendrix, Cristha  Edwards, Idalis Boyd, and Jataysia Daniels plant milkweed in Lindsay Street Park’s pollinator garden. Images courtesy of Whitney Flanagan, Dr. Jennifer Cruse Sanders

 

Co-blogged by GAPP + Jataysia Daniels, Greening Youth Foundation & Atlanta Botanical Garden Conservation Intern!

 

 

 

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Uncategorized

ABG Talk focuses on understanding pollen

The Atlanta Botanical Garden hosts Science Cafe, a series of informal science based talks that encourage the public to engage with speakers on important topics. This years series focuses on pollinators and their conservation, and highlights several important pollinator related projects and the researchers behind them.

Today we highlight the presentation given on July 10th 2016 by Dr. Karen Bell who is currently in a postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University  where she is developing methods for DNA metabarcoding of pollen. This research is being applied primarily to forensic palynology , but also to address questions in ecology and evolutionary biology.

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Karen’s enthusiastic and informative talk  was well received by the audience, and became a great interactive platform for conversation about palynology, forensics, DNA barcoding, and DNA metabarcoding. Her talk highlighted the abilities of DNA Barcoding and metabarcoding to easily and rapidly identify pollen grains, a task which fewer and fewer trained experts are able to achieve expediently. Bell also highlighted other important applications for the technology such as forensic paleontology, biosecurity, product verification,  border security, and allergen monitoring.

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Bell and her research associates are one of very few people in the world currently developing this technology for its use on pollen, so it was a unique opportunity for the Science Cafe audience to be able to listen to her speak on such novel research. Looking toward the future, Bell hopes that the DNA barcoding and DNA metabarcoding of pollen can continue to have real world regulatory applications such as forensic palyonolgy and border protection, but also  be used to investigate and broaden our understanding of pollinator networks.

Some more about Dr. Karen Bell

https://brosilab.wordpress.com/lab-members-2/karen-bell/

https://theconversation.com/profiles/karen-l-bell-191256

 

Co-blogged by GAPP + Jataysia Daniels, Greening Youth Foundation & Atlanta Botanical Garden Conservation Intern!

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Uncategorized

Is your Milkweed native?

The Atlanta Botanical Garden hosts Science Cafe, a series of informal science based talks that encourage the public to engage with speakers on important topics. This years series focuses on pollinators and their conservation, and highlights several important pollinator related projects and the researchers behind them.

Today we are highlighting Dr Jaret Daniels  an Associate Professor of Entomology at the University of Florida  who spoke at the Gardens on Monarch butterfly conservation. Monarch butterflies are some of the most iconic species of butterfly in North America, primarily because of their enigmatic coloring and their fascinating migratory patterns. However due to declining habitat, numbers of Monarchs have been decreasing.

In his presentation, along with outlining  overall habitat decline, Daniels pointed out one of the other threats to Monarch butterflies is non-native milkweed. Daniel informed the audience that planting tropical milkweed could cause populations of Monarchs to persist longer into the cooler months, causing them to freeze in a cold Atlanta winter, rather than migrating south for overwintering in warmer climates.

Instead native milkweed species such as Asclepias tuberosa and Asclepias incarnata are excellent caterpillar host plants, and nectar plants for adult butterflies. These types of milkweed provide forage and nesting for Monarchs, and are encouraged in plantings of pollinator gardens.

Additionally Daniels encourages gardeners to vet local milkweed sources, and be sure your native milkweed is pesticide free. This is because some systemic pesticides can remain in the plant, and be transferred to Monarch caterpillars and adults.

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Monarchs overwinter at El Rosario Monarch Sanctuary. Flickr: Heather Spaulding

 

Daniels talk fostered a clearer understanding of the biology and conservation issues related to one of North America’s most famous pollinators. For more information on Dr. Jaret Daniels research and scientific lepidopterian interests you can visit his academic page here.

 

 

Co-blogged by GAPP + Jataysia Daniels, Greening Youth Foundation & Atlanta Botanical Garden Conservation Intern!

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Buzz Flash

Georgia Butterfly Brochure

Do you want to know who is who in your pollinator garden? Well now you can thanks to The North American Butterfly Association ( Georgia- Piedmont Chapter), who have teamed up with Dr. Jaret Daniels and Monarchs acrossGeorgia to create a Georgia butterfly brochure.

With funding from Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites and the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service, This brochure is a step by step guide on how to properly identify butterflies.

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Knowing which butterflies are in your local area will help you, help them, by becoming informed about the butterflies specific host plants, and life cycles. This step by step guide is  broken up into three categories; brushfoots, whites/sulphurs/skippers, and swallowtails so that you can easily  identify butterflies in your local pollinator gardens!

Download the brochure here and start identifying your garden’s visitors today!

 

Co-blogged by GAPP + Jataysia Daniels, Greening Youth Foundation & Atlanta Botanical Garden Conservation Intern!

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Buzz Flash Citizen GAPP

Disney movie highlights pollinators

The Disney documentary “Wings of Life” unveils the secret life of bats, butterflies, and bumblebees through the use of macrophotography. This nature documentary by filmmaker Louis Schwartzberg, will be screening on Saturday June 25th 2016 from 11:00am to 12:30pm at the Midtown Arts Cinema, in Midtown Atlanta.
If you are interested in attending the event, being screened by Monarchs Across Georgia as part of National Pollinator Week, Please see here for more information, including how to reserve your seat.
 Bring your popcorn and enjoy a great film about the power of pollinators.
Here is a trailer to get you excited about the screening.
photo credit: Kylie Bucalo
photo credit: Kylie Bucalo
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Buzz Flash

Discovery day at the Jimmy Carter Library

Come and join the GAPP team and other partners on Saturday June 18th from 9:00am to 1:00pm for a fun day of hands-on Monarch butterfly and pollinator activities at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum. Sponsored by the Rosalyn Carter Butterfly Trail, The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, and the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, the discovery day will feature booths for children and adults to learn more about pollinator conservation.
Partners for the event include Monarchs across Georgia, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Blue Heron Nature Preserve, Emory University and many many more who plan to have exciting activities and information for participants.
So come and enjoy this FREE event, interact with some of Georgia’s most dedicated pollinator conservationists and learn what we are doing to promote pollinator abundance and health in Georgia!
As an added bonus the Freeedom Farmers’ Market will also be attending and operating at the event, which features several native plant vendors! So if you missed all those native plant sales we blogged about at the beginning of this month, here is your chance to get some great natives for your pollinator garden!
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Buzz Flash

Pollinator talks at the Atlanta Botanical Garden

Science Cafe is returning to the The Atlanta Botanical Garden this summer, and this years theme is Pollinators in The Garden! These informal talks will be held every second Sunday, May- October, and are an excellent way for researchers and scientists to interact and engage with public audiences. This year the schedule includes researchers and scientists from the University of Georgia, Georgia Institute of Technology, USDA and the Xerces society who will highlight the importance of pollinator conservation and pollinator gardens.

The series kicks off this Sunday May 8th at 2pm with Scott Hoffman Black,  the Xerces Society’s Executive Director. Scott has a passion and commitment to pollinator conservation and is actively involved in endangered species conservation, campaigning for pollinator conservation, and educating land users on sustainable land management practices.

So come and enjoy these talks, and learn from the experts what all the buzz is about. Admission to the Garden is required, however the lectures are free. For more information, including the speaker schedule please visit the Atlanta Botanical Garden website here. See you there!