Collaborating with Community Scientists to Improve Conservation: A Case Study with Bee Visitation Networks

Urban landscapes are a patchwork of small parcels of land that vary considerably in conservation quality and have a tendency to favor some species over others. However, the success of urban conservation efforts relies heavily on two things: knowledge of the biological system and individual decisions by landowners. The likelihood that a person takes conservation action is driven, not by scientific knowledge per se, but by their intentions and feelings of control. Collaborations between landowners and scientists, such as community science programs, have the potential to simultaneously test questions of conservation interest while empowering landowners to become conservation stewards.

In this project, we will collaborate with community scientists to document bee diversity and foraging behavior in residential gardens through the Shutterbee community science program. We will test whether conservation practices increase the diversity of urban bees and whether participation in a community science program changes conservation-related attitudes and behaviors of the participants. Ultimately, this project will inform best practices in urban bee conservation and deepen our understanding of what influences conservation-related behavioral change.

Project Update

The Shutterbee Citizen Science Project reached over 945 people in the St. Louis area. Between 2020 and 2023, volunteers recorded over 40,000 bees in 216 gardens, including a rare species that had not been observed in the region since 1854. The project held Bee Blitzes at Forest Park and two Shutterbee Symposiums (Recap of 2022, Recap of 2023).

Results from this research suggest that complex (aka “wilder”) gardens support greater bee diversity, non-lethal sampling methods accurately document local bee biodiversity, and participation in the program deepened volunteers environmental identity and changed their conservation behaviors.

In collaboration with Erin Tate at the Saint Louis Zoo, we gathered 103 responses to a participant survey that assessed changes in attitudes, knowledge, and behavior before and after at least one season of data collection. Our goal was to understand how involvement with Shutterbee affected the participants themselves.  Survey results indicate that Shutterbee participants’s Environmental Identity increased significantly after participation in just one season.

Shutterbee engaged 28 undergraduates who designed the logo, built the website, identified bees on iNaturalist, sent emails, wrote the newsletter, collected data, curated data, and did their own analyses. Undergraduates have presented their Shutterbee research at Shutterbee Symposium, as a senior thesis, or at the Botanical and/or Ecological Society for America conferences.

Shutterbee produced 3 middle school educational activities that are aligned with NAAEE Guidelines for Excellence and Missouri Science Learning Standards in partnership with experts from the Saint Louis Zoo and Missouri Botanical Garden. The activities are available, in full, on the Educational Activities page of the Shutterbee website.

Articles and Publications

The Shutterbee Project shows how local gardens support high bee diversity in St. Louis. HEC Science & Technology. March 2024.

‘Citizen scientist’ finds rare parasitic bumble bee identified through the Shutterbee Project. HEC Science & Technology. October 2023.

Bee Enthusiasts Swarm Webster’s Campus for the Shutterbee Symposium. Webester University news. November 2022.

‘Shutterbee’ Has Biologists Asking St. Louisans To Collaborate As Backyard Naturalists . St. Louis Public Radio. March 2020.

Research Team

Nicole Miller-Struttmann, Webster University 
Eric Goedereis, Webster University
Erin Tate, Saint Louis Zoo
Gerardo Camilo, Saint Louis University 
Ed Spevak, Saint Louis Zoo 
Mike Dawson, Saint Louis Zoo
Bob Coulter, Missouri Botanical Garden