In urban areas, residential and community gardens are potential floral resources for pollinators. Pollinator "friendly" gardens are a popular way to support this ecosystem service, but the pollinator plant list recommendations lack empirical evidence to show which plants are most attractive to potential pollinators. This project used a community science survey based on a morpho-species protocol to monitor five community orchards in Portland, Oregon during six months of the growing season in 2017. Overall, orchards with higher floral species richness supported higher richness and abundance of pollinators, but the pollinator communities were not significantly different among the orchard sites. Orchard fruit-set had a variable correlation with pollinator richness and abundance. At the landscape level, the number of miles of street within 500m showed a strong negative correlation with the overall pollinator community richness. Bumble bee abundance showed a strong negative correlation with the percentage of single family residential zoning, and NDVI at 2000 meters. Our community science approach promoted volunteer awareness of pollinator diversity in Portland, but did not increase volunteer intention to conserve pollinators. This research helped build evidence of the dynamics of urban pollinators and the role that community science can play in pollinator biodiversity monitoring.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-5534 |
| Date | 18 July 2018 |
| Creators | Tyler, Jess Alan |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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