
December 03, 2024
32 Minutes
Guests: Amy Dolan, Michelle Toshack
Tags: Bees, Pollinators, Community Science, Staff Guests,
Community science is critical to conservation efforts and the Bumble Bee Atlas is no exception. Volunteers across the country have contributed to the Atlas program through bumble bee surveys, providing crucial information on bumble bee abundance and distribution. This information informs conservation efforts and makes a real difference.
Guest Information
Amy Dolan and Michelle Toshack are two of Xerces Society's Bumble Bee Atlas coordinators. Between them they cover much of the Rocky Mountain and Intermountain regions.
Amy coordinates the Mountain States Bumble Bee Atlas in Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. Amy has a master’s degree in entomology from Montana State University, where she studied bumble bees, and has a background in science education.
Michelle covers Montana, and has a master's degree in biological sciences from Simon Fraser University, where she researched pollinator biodiversity and the impacts of farming practices on bumble bees. She has a background in field biology and managing community science projects.
Show Notes & Links
In this episode, we discuss the Bumble Bee Atlas, a community science program that helps us understand the abundance and distribution of bumble bee species. Anyone can participate by adopting a grid and surveying bumble bees twice a year. Using a no-kill method, you even get to hold bumble bees and take their picture. This program is critical to the conservation efforts of these important species.
Transcript
Matthew: Welcome to Bug Banter with the Xerces Society where we explore the world of invertebrates and discover how to help these extraordinary animals. If you want to support our work, go to xerces.org/donate.
Rachel: Hi! I'm Rachel Dunham in Missoula, Montana.
Matthew: And I’m Matthew Shepherd in Portland, Oregon.
Rachel: Community science is critical to conservation efforts and the Bumble Bee Atlas is no exception. Volunteers across the country have contributed to the Atlas program through bumble bee surveys, providing crucial information on bumble bee abundance and distribution. This information informs conservation efforts and makes a real difference.
Rachel: To tell us more about the Bumble Bee Atlas are two of our newest Atlas coordinators, Amy Dolan and Michelle Toshack. Between them they cover much of the Rocky Mountain and Intermountain regions. Amy coordinates the Mountain States Bumble Bee Atlas in Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. Amy has a master’s degree in entomology from Montana State University, where she studied bumble bees, and has a background in science education. Michelle covers Montana, and has a master’s in biological sciences from Simon Fraser University, where she researched pollinator biodiversity and the impacts of farming practices on bumble bees. She has a background in field biology and managing community science projects.
Rachel: Welcome Michelle and Amy! We're so happy to have you here today.
Amy: Thanks for having us.
Michelle: Thanks. Happy to be here.
Matthew: Yeah, no, we really appreciate it. Thank you. But to start us off, can you tell us a little bit about the history of the Bumble Bee Atlas program? I mean, from what I know, it's bigger than just the regions that you two are responsible for.
Amy: Yeah, sure. So the Bumble Bee Atlas—and you're speaking to the two rookies, right? So we're the newest members of the Atlas team. But the Bumble Bee Atlas really grew out of a need for data. We know that bumble bees’ populations are imperiled, that they're in trouble. There's a bunch of different factors that are affecting them and causing their declines. But if we want to take action to conserve them, we need data about where they are, the habitats that they're using, the flowers they rely on. And we have over a century of data points of bumble bees collected by entomologists all over the world, but those are all individual data points—maybe where an entomologist was taking a trip, or a really targeted project.
Amy: But what we were missing was region-wide coverage of where bumble bees are. So looking at where bumble bees are on a regional scale. And then, what a lot of those historical data are missing is survey effort. So how much time was put into collecting them? Was it all day looking for that one bumble bee, or did they just happen upon it? So we don't know a lot about how bumble bees were collected and the effort that goes into it. And so what the Bumble Bee Atlas is trying to do is to fill that need and to get this baseline data of a standardized protocol on a large regional scale so we can figure out where our bumble bees currently are with kind of up-to-date information. And fill in some of those gaps in places like rural Nevada, where nobody has ever looked for bumble bees.
Matthew: Yeah, because I imagine to some extent the sightings were wherever someone was.
Amy: Yeah, you can look at maps of historic data and you can see where roads are. Like, it’s like, you think, “Oh, I think there must be have been a rest stop there,” because that's where all of those dots are.
Matthew: So bumble bee distribution kind of matches people distribution huh?
Amy: Very much so.
Matthew: Yeah.
Amy: And so that's what we're trying to change a little bit—is to look in places where people haven't been to see how bumble bees are doing there.
Matthew: Yeah, no, that's great. So how many states has the Bumble Bee Atlas program reached now?
Amy: Yeah, so in this past summer, 2024, there was 20 states.
Matthew: Wow.
Amy: There’s 10 different projects. So some of them, like Michelle's, are a state-based Atlas, and others, like mine, are regional. So it started in 2018. Rich Hatfield—who now for Xerces, manages all things bumble bees—he manages the program. But he started the first one in the Pacific Northwest. And every year since 2018, another Atlas has been added. So now we had this summer, 20 states, seven staff members, and just lots of work being done.
Matthew: That's really impressive.
Rachel: Yeah, that's amazing. I remember when I started, it was shortly after the Pacific Northwest Atlas program launched, and just being really impressed with that. And now it being only six years later, it's really quite astounding to see how much it's grown, and the staff and just the passion of people wanting to be involved.
Rachel: So can you tell us how the program works? Is there training? What do people do?
Michelle: Yeah, so Xerces staff, like Amy or myself, we provide all the necessary training, whether it's online or in person, so that people can be informed about bumble bee ecology, conservation, and also how to follow the instructions of the project protocol. So each state is divided into these roughly 50 by 50 kilometer grid cells, and people can adopt those grid cells, whether it's close to home or maybe an adventure a little further afield. And people commit to doing two surveys throughout the field season.
Michelle: Field season varies by state, but generally it starts in May or June and ends in August, September. So to do the survey, it consists of catching bumble bees for 45 minutes and doing a brief habitat assessment. So people choose an area with flowers, catch a bumble bee in a net, and place the bee in a little vial. That vial goes on ice and within a few minutes that bee is chilled to the point where it's not moving. It's also not stinging at this point. So this allows people to be able to handle the bee and take a number of photos. These photos are incredibly important to look at the details of the bee, whether it's the side of the face, the pattern on the thorax, the color of the abdomen. And that allows people, like Amy and other Atlas staff, to identify these bees later.
Michelle: So the bees usually wake up pretty quickly. They then fly off, go about their business unharmed. And after catching bees for 45 minutes, people fill out this brief habitat assessment. After a survey is complete, all the data gets entered into our data portal, Bumble Bee Watch. Then people can start planning their next bumble-bee-catching adventure and do it all over again.
Rachel: Can people adopt more than one cell? Is it typical that people only do one? Do some people do more?
Michelle: Oh, absolutely. So the two surveys per grid cell is a minimum. We definitely encourage people to do more if they want to. And especially regions that are pretty remote, like Montana and the Rocky Mountain region, we really encourage people to go to some of these areas a little bit further away, where we tend to have data gaps. So if people want to explore a new area of the state or the region, they are more than welcome to do so.
Rachel: That's great. And can they do it with a friend, or do you have to do the survey by yourself?
Michelle: Yeah, we recommend that people do it with a friend. It's always more fun that way. So people can team up in groups. We have a number of groups, like master naturalists or native plant society groups, that like to go out together to do surveys, and we definitely encourage that.
Matthew: Yeah, sounds like a great thing to do. I participated in the Pacific Northwest. I adopted a grid cell not far from here, so I can tell you it's a really nice thing to go off and do. It’s a—just one of those kind of dreamy times. You’re like, “Oh, I can just forget about the world and just walk around looking at bees,” and it's awesome.
Matthew: Turning back to the conversation that—I mean, this program really is reliant upon volunteers. And from what we're just hearing about the grid cells, you must need a lot of volunteers to adopt them all. Because I don't know how many, you know, 50-kilometer squares—I don't know how many of those would cover Montana, or another four states. So, I mean, how many volunteers do you need?
Amy: We will take as many volunteers as we can get.
Matthew: An easy answer.
Amy: You're right, like—. Yeah we, I mean—. Yeah, California has a Bumble Bee Atlas. That's another huge state. You know, the Mountain States region that I'm in—I have 371 grid cells across four states.
Matthew: Wow.
Amy: And you add Montana to that, that's 550 grid cells. So that's—. And our goal is to have at least two surveys in each one. So you're right, it would take a lot of volunteers. And we do have a pretty loyal volunteer base. At the end of every season, on the Bumble Bee Atlas website, the team publishes highlights of just some numbers of things. And I have from last year—so 2023, so this is before Montana and the Mountain State started—there was 970 volunteers that participated. And they conducted 2,591 bumble bee surveys in 15 states.
Amy: So, like, it's pretty impressive that we just have this passionate group of people that are out.
Matthew: That's amazing.
Amy: Like, and I agree that it's so fun. It's one of my favorite things to go out and look for bumble bees. And when people have a cold little bumble bee that they're holding in their hand and they get to watch it, you know, fly away. Like, they just get so excited and hopefully tell their friends. Because yeah, that's a big part of what Michelle and I do is recruiting volunteers, just letting people know about this. And, you know, trying to get more and more people to help us with this important work.
Matthew: And do these people need any kind of special background or particular experience?
Amy: No, like, we will take anybody and anyone who's willing to join. There are—you know, some of our partners are biologists with federal agencies. Michelle spent a lot of time on national forests in Montana this past summer training biologists because they're out in some of these remote areas anyways. And I was doing the same thing across the mountain region. But anybody is willing to join. We provide all of the training. We have online videos, we have print material, we respond to emails. We travel around and lead workshops and field trainings to show people how to do that. So all of the protocol is taught.
Amy: And then some people get worried. “Well, I can't identify a bumble bee,” or “I can't identify that plant that it was on.” I rely very heavily on iNaturalist for identifying plants because I'm not a very good plant identifier. And what I tell people is if you catch something and it's not a bumble bee, it's not going to hurt it. You can take a picture of a fly or a honeybee or something else and that's okay. We'd rather you take pictures of whatever you catch and you'll start to learn. And so that's the other thing is people are learning so much about, you know, these amazing little animals that are all around. And then they start to turn into us where you can't go on a hike without seeing bees on flowers everywhere, and we don't make it very far. Haha.
Matthew: Is that a warning you add? Haha.
Amy: Yes, yeah. Haha. But I don't think it's a bad thing.
Matthew: No, not at all. No, but the idea that you're helping people learn more, and they in themselves are becoming better naturalists and more attuned—it seems like a really good byproduct from all that data, the gathering.
Rachel: I think it's almost like a superpower once you start seeing bees, it's like you can't not. But it opens up this like whole new world.
Amy: It's not so fun for people who try to hike with you. You know, “Come on, come on, come on.”
Rachel: So Michelle, you launched the Montana Bumble Bee Atlas this year, which I was very excited about, being in Montana and having a fellow Xerces employee here. And there was so much excitement around the program here in Missoula. Was it successful? What were maybe some of the challenges you faced and what were the successes?
Michelle: Yeah, so for this first season, we had a really dedicated turnout of participants. So we had over 2,400 submissions to Bumble Bee Watch. So this is now increasing our data set and understanding of bumble bees across the state. And really, a major goal for this first season was to survey on Forest Service land since our partner was the Forest Service. And we really—we completed a lot of surveys on Forest Service land in Western Montana. So all seven national forests have been surveyed.
Michelle: I think the other important thing is that we recorded a number of bumble bee species in decline, including the western bumble bee. So we had 31 detections of the western bumble bee in multiple locations across the state. This is a bee that's been petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act. We're actually expecting a listing decision any day now. And it's just really important to understand where these bees are, what habitats they're using, what flowers we're finding them on, so that we can learn how to better conserve them.
Michelle: The other success is kind of already what you already mentioned and it's just getting people involved in bumble bee conservation. This is such a rewarding part of my job, as well, to give people this firsthand experience of interacting so closely with bees that—you know, maybe they've seen them flying by or foraging in their gardens or parks. But to really get up close and personal, and stare into the eyes of a bumble bee and watch it preen itself as it warms back up and fly off—I just had a lot of curious minds and great questions from participants who really enjoyed those up close and personal encounters.
Rachel: That's amazing. You've done just such an incredible job, I have to say, with that, and I'm very excited to see this program continue to grow here in the state.
Michelle: Yeah, thanks, Rachel. I think the other part of your question that I didn't answer was the challenge part. Montana is a huge state with not a lot of people. And so we did a great job for this first year of surveying Western Montana, where we have really incredible mountainous landscapes, a lot of public lands and more people. The focus for next year is to really fill in those data gaps and understand where bumble bees are in some of these more remote rural locations. So I think it'll be an adventure for the quest of adding new bumble bee species to the list, since there are some Eastern Montana species that we would expect, but we just didn't see them this year. And being creative to get to some of those more remote places.
Matthew: I'm sitting here thinking like, “Wow, Montana is a big area to cover.” Because from what Amy said, I think it might—wasn't it from 370 to 150—sorry, to 550 cells. So it's like 180 cells or something. But, Amy, you've got 371 cells to cover. So four states—Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming—and from what I understand, your Mountain States Bumble Bee Atlas hasn't really launched yet. Am I right?
Amy: Yeah, we did—Mountain States Bumble Bee Atlas launched this year.
Matthew: Okay.
Amy: The official launch date was June 1st. It was kind of a slow first year and that was mostly because of me. I was living in Idaho and teaching middle school science. And when I accepted the position to lead the Bumble Bee Atlas, I didn't want to just leave mid-school year. And so it was awesome that Xerces and the team was willing to work with me, so that I finished the school year, moved to Colorado, and then launched. So it was really awesome that Rich and Michelle did a lot of laying the groundwork so that things were sort of in place.
Amy: And then there were some really amazing volunteers. I'm assuming they're Xerces members that knew about the Atlas that was coming up, because some people started—they did online training and they started surveys before I even started. So, like, they were ready to go. And then, yeah, I just kind of jumped right in. And we did have a season. There was kind of, like I said, the slow start, but I visited all four states. I led a training workshop and field events in all four states. We had out of those 371 grid cells, 68 of them got adopted this first year. And 177 surveys were conducted. So we got a start. And then this year was really about making connections, building relationships, letting people know about it. And I'm excited to start big next year, next spring.
Amy: We also learned a little bit this year about the diverse climates of this Mountain States region. Like Southern Nevada, you're in the desert, right? So even starting a Bumble Bee Atlas in June is kind of too late. And then we've got these really—fourteeners in Colorado, like high elevation. And so, like, that's some of the stuff that we're just learning and tweaking is what is the right window for surveys for some of these different areas. So kind of resetting and get excited for next year.
Matthew: Well, I'm sorry that I misspoke earlier. I just had a feeling that it hadn't quite got going yet, but I guess it has got going and—.
Amy: Yeah, yeah.
Matthew: You've got a great foundation laid so—.
Rachel: It sounds like we have some great, dedicated volunteers, which doesn't shock me at all.
Matthew: No, I know there are amazing people that we have supporting Xerces.
Michelle: I just have to say that before Amy started, I had people reaching out to me, especially from Colorado—there are so many people in Colorado who are excited about this project—saying like, “When does the new Mountain States coordinator start?” And people were very excited when Amy came on and started managing that program.
Matthew: Yeah, that's great.
Rachel: So Xerces, as we've talked about, runs several regional Bumble Bee Atlases, which collectively covers more than half of the lower 48 states, but there are states that don't have an Atlas program yet. Is there a goal to expand the program to these other states? And if so, what can people do to encourage their state to adopt the Atlas program?
Michelle: Yeah, so the goal of the program is to make sure that we're getting bumble—we’re getting data on bumble bee populations in a way that allows us to make informed conservation decisions at the state and regional level. So a great way to do that is through a Bumble Bee Atlas or a similar program. And if people are interested in engaging with Xerces, we encourage them to reach out to their state wildlife agency, encourage them to look into the program, or to reach out to Xerces directly. So the Bumble Bee Atlas program has proven to be a cost-effective way to gather data in ways that allow local wildlife agencies to enact this evidence-based conservation measure to protect essential pollinators. So basically, we just want to make sure that we are building collaborations and partnerships that are meaningful in areas that have that direct conservation need for this type of data.
Matthew: I'd say that one thing that we've noticed that when people do work with the Bumble Bee Atlas, they also become advocates locally in their own community for pollinator conservation, more broadly. So it seems like we need those pollinator advocates active in states where they don't already have an Atlas to start advocating for an Atlas, as well as everything else.
Michelle: Yeah, absolutely.
Amy: There are also Bumble Bee Atlases, or similar programs, in states where Xerces isn't. So that's important, as well. You know, we have our projects that you can find all on our website. But if people are interested and they're like, “Oh, they're not in my state.” Just doing a little bit of searching to see is there some sort of bee atlas or bumble bee atlas already happening in their state, possibly at a smaller level—sometimes through universities—people are starting this work. So that could be a starting point, too. And then if they really don't find something, then they could reach out to those wildlife agencies or reach out to us and see what we could do trying to move forward.
Rachel: I was just going to say, I think it's important to note that we’re—it's not like Xerces is doing this work alone in these states. We have really important and key partners that help us make this happen. So very much a partnership with all of these programs, not just us by ourselves. So it's important that we build those relationships.
Matthew: Yeah, definitely. We do get a lot of support from several state and federal agencies to help—obviously funding for these projects, but also some of that relationship building, too. Very much a collaboration and a partnership, this project, yeah. So, I mean, if people want to get involved in your Atlas programs, what would you recommend they do? I mean, where can they go to find more information or discover how to contact you?
Amy: The easiest thing would be to go to the Bumble Bee Atlas website, which is bumblebeeatlas.org.
Matthew: Easy.
Amy: And even if you just Google search “Bumble Bee Atlas” and “Xerces Bumble Bee Atlas,” it's there. And there's then links to all of the regional programs. And so the website—I would say two important things. The first one is on that main landing page, there's an interest form. So if people are interested, they can just fill in their information and they're not committing to having to do surveys or anything yet, but that puts them on a regional mailing list. When they fill in that information, they say, “What state are you interested in or are you living in?” And then, like, everybody that's in the Mountain States, I get an interest list, and then I can send out emails about local events and trainings, and local, like, regional information.
Amy: And then just exploring the website, there's training videos, there's participant handbooks, there's pictures, there's just all sorts of information that people could explore on the website to learn more about the program.
Matthew: Alternatively, if people don't have the full time to commit to adopting a grid cell, or if there isn't an Atlas in this state—I mean, are there other community science programs they can get involved with? And I know you've already mentioned Bumble Bee Watch as the portal for where the data goes.
Amy: Yeah, I mean, that's something everybody can do is to take pictures, and, like, pictures of bumble bees can get uploaded to Bumble Bee Watch even without doing a survey as incidental observations. But there's also a lot of other just citizen science photo-based programs that are out there using iNaturalist. And if somebody takes a picture and uploads it to iNaturalist, eventually all of that information kind of, on the back end goes to the same place. We have a database of all of the bumble bee observations that is kind of held by one of our colleagues. And so iNaturalist observations go there, Bumble Bee Atlas observations go there.
Amy: And then in certain places, there are just those regional things. I know in Utah, the state of Utah has the Utah Pollinator Pursuit, which is an iNaturalist—kind of like, almost like a scavenger hunt on iNaturalist. So you take a picture of any pollinator and you upload it to iNaturalist, but tag it to that project. And then it goes into that kind of curated subset of all of the iNaturalist. And I know that there's things like that in other states all across the U.S.
Matthew: Yeah, it's great to know that even if there isn't an Atlas at the moment, there are still things that people can do to contribute.
Amy: Yeah, definitely.
Rachel: All right. Well, thank you both so much for explaining your programs and introducing us to the Atlas program. We've talked about it here and there on the show, but it's nice to just have the spotlight put on this program, because it is so important. So we're going to end here on our favorite question. What inspired you both to get into bumble bee conservation and community science? Michelle, do you want to go first?
Michelle: Sure. So I think butterflies were my gateway pollinator. I had a great mentor and professor in undergrad, John McLaughlin, who was teaching a wildlife biology course. And all of my peers were interested in like big, charismatic megafauna and I was the one, like, chasing cabbage white butterflies on campus. So that turned into a field biology position doing a butterfly inventory across two national parks in Washington. And it was absolutely wonderful, like wildflower meadows for ages. And yes, I was catching butterflies, but you start to notice, like, what other insects are in those subalpine communities. And I just learned a lot by being out there and just being curious and observing.
Michelle: So I did this seasonal field biology route for a number of years and then decided to go to graduate school for bumble bees. I just was really fascinated in, like, some of their unique adaptations and the conservation concerns of bumble bees. And so did that for grad school for a couple of years, and have worked on a lot of community science projects before and after grad school, and just really love that engagement of getting the public involved in scientific programs. So people don't need to have a background in science. They don't need any special training, but can, you know, be out there contributing to important data sets, taking photos, collecting data in a way that—researchers can't be out there collecting massive amounts of data the way that this army of community scientists can be doing. So, yeah, just really, really love involving people in the scientific process.
Amy: I think if I were to answer that question, the community science part of it, I think is easy for me because I've always loved nature, and then I have taken that and channeled that into teaching. So I have been a middle school teacher, a high school teacher, an outdoor educator. I worked with the Montana Conservation Corps as a senior youth group leader. So I've always—everything that I've learned about nature I've wanted to share with others. Because just, like, watching the discovery. Like, one of my favorite things is, you know, middle school kids, the first time they look through a microscope and see something moving. You know, it's just, it's that discovery, and I love that. And it doesn't change whether it's kids or adults. You know, as we're teaching these adults about the Bumble Bee Atlas, they're just as excited when they're seeing a bumble bee up close as kids are.
Amy: I think getting into bumble bees as my specialty was kind of random—also can be traced back to students. I was teaching at a high school in Arizona. And we did—it was a very small charter school and we did our electives as two weeks of all day, every day focusing really deep on a topic. And I found a local entomologist, and we did an entomology intensive for two weeks. I had high school kids with their phones not—like, out of service—with insect nets, just chasing around and like, “Miss Dolan, I found a Coleoptera!” You know, they're just like so excited. And we all got real deep into the insect world.
Amy: And then I had always been unsure of what part of nature I love the best that I wanted to dedicate graduate school time to it. And that experience pushed me to go back to school to get my master's degree in entomology. And my project at Montana State was looking at insects associated with huckleberry plants in Montana. And so I wasn't even going into graduate school looking for bees, I was just going to learn more about insects. So, but when I was—then, you know, spent two summers just studying huckleberry plants—bumble bees are one of their main pollinators. Huckleberries flower really early and bumble bees come out really early. And then I kind of fell in love with these awesome, loud, fuzzy pollinators. And just like went down this rabbit hole.
Amy: And then the second part of my master's thesis was looking at bumble bees of Montana. So we looked at all of the historic records. We went out and collected and figured out how many bumble bees there were in the state of Montana. So yeah, kind of like all over the place, but I love bumble bees. I love being outside. I love teaching. And so when this position came up, people that read the job description said, “Amy, it sounds like you wrote this job description for yourself.” So it was a really good fit.
Matthew: I always love hearing when there isn't like a linear route through to where you are, because so often it's like somehow high schoolers are expected to know exactly where they're going to be in five years or ten years. And it's like, “It's not like that.”
Amy: No.
Matthew: You need to know that it's kind of, kind of chaotic, but you'll get to where you want to go. There's no right or wrong way, so thank you.
Amy: Yeah, you can never—like, I never would have thought that I'd be, you know, doing a Bumble Bee Atlas. That was never on my radar, but here I am and I love it. So yeah, it's awesome.
Rachel: Well, we're very lucky to have both of you. There's a lot of internal chatter among our staff just saying like, “You wouldn't believe who we hired!” And you guys both came on at similar times and we're just obviously very lucky to have such passionate employees who really care about connecting people to nature, because without that, we're not—you know, we're not a huge staff and we can only do so much. We really do need community members and volunteers to get out and help us with this work. And you've both just done such an incredible job. So thank you for coming today. Thank you for sharing your stories and your experiences. And I'm just so excited to see these programs continue to grow.
Rachel: Bug Banter is brought to you by the Xerces Society, a donor-based nonprofit that is working to protect insects and other invertebrates—the life that sustains us.
Rachel: If you’re already a donor, thank you so much. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/donate. For information about this podcast and for show notes go to xerces.org/bugbanter.