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This Gardens subsite developed with the kind assistance of the Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation
For the basics, see
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- The Role of the Park
Last summer, Dufferin Grove Park began participating in a research monitoring study carried out by Scott MacIvor, a PhD Student at York University. The four-year project will examine the effects of urban land use and complexity on the diversity and foraging of wild, cavity-nesting solitary bees. The principle objective is to better integrating biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships into all scales of city planning and design initiatives.
Over 200 sites all over Toronto are participating, and these include public and private gardens, parks, green roofs, and semi-naturalized areas. Participating in the study is simple, and lots of people are involved: all that is required is that a small, maintenance-free bee “condo” is set up on a wooden stake or tree, and left alone until October. The condos are made of small paper tubes inside of a protective casing, and attract cavity-nesting bees, which represent about a fifth of the 100 or so species we find in the greater Toronto area. The bees provision larva in these cavities, which remain in place until the following year.
These bees naturally nest in small, dark and dry holes that exist in cities as raspberry canes, reeds, the brickwork of buildings, and in beetle-bored holes in both living and dead trees, as well as manmade bee condos and other structures. Making nesting sites available in your yard is as easy as bundling plant stems together, or drilling holes in pieces of wood. In the study, the bee condos will be collected and opened in October, and the bees identified. They’ll then be kept in growth chambers that mimic natural conditions. At their natural emergence times the following spring, the bees will be identified then released. The condos will be re-setup in the same location each year. At Dufferin Grove, the bee condo is located behind the wooden fence in the tree nursery where several bees have already taken up residence.
Citizen engagement and cooperation in research that sustains ecosystem services upon which we all rely is critical in light of drastic and unpredictable changes to our urban and food-producing environments. This is as a result of a degrading urban and suburban landscape, and climate change. Moreover, pollinator diversity is declining worldwide, especially that of bees. Although many researchers have given attention to the decline of managed honeybees, few have assessed the decline of wild, solitary bees, and whether it is possible to enhance their resiliency in cities through habitat creation and management. There is evidence that solitary bees can persist in urban habitat altered by human activity; however, their diversity, movement, and pollination services remains greatly misunderstood. Please contact wildbeestoronto@gmail.com or visit www.TObee.ca for more information and how you can participate at home.