Meeting Abstract
Citizen Science (CS) is a powerful tool that can promote education and conservation by facilitating the participation of non-scientists in research endeavors. Its implementation can lead to the advancement of ecological theory, and the number of peer-reviewed CS papers has increased nearly 800% in the last five years alone. Thus, we developed Backyard ANTology, a CS outreach program focused on the distributional patterns of ants in California’s Central Valley. Ants are tractable focal taxa that play important roles in many ecosystems and exhibit variation in biodiversity across urban-rural gradients. Yet, there is a paucity of ecological information on ants in the Central Valley, a region characterized by a range of human-impacts—from rapid urbanization to intensive agriculture. Our program aims to open this ecological black box while also engaging citizens in science they can conduct in their schools, parks, or backyards. Participants request ant collecting kits through a web interface (www.backyardantology.weebly.com), collect ants wherever they choose, fill out information cards, and return their collected ants via pre-paid envelopes. We identify the ants and post results on our website, which also contains general information about frequently encountered ant species of the Central Valley. Thus, the website is designed to inform participants and non-participants, with the ultimate goals of promoting knowledge and recruiting more participants. To date, participants ranging from 3-71 years of age have collected 13 ant species, largely outdoors and in residential areas. Ongoing research is also assessing how participation in Backyard ANTology changes participants’ attitudes toward science, and future efforts aim to integrate a K-8 learning module that meets the state of California’s educational standards.
