Citizen science at Preston Montford

Citizen science is becoming more valuable to the scientific world. It simultaneously engages the public in important, modern scientific issues and gathers large amounts of data for scientists to analyse.  Since 2010, FSC Preston Montford has taken part in a survey which has  recently been published. The paper, titled “The Success of the Horse-Chestnut Leaf-Miner, Cameraria ohridella, in the UK Revealed with Hypothesis-Led Citizen Science”, can be found here (http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0086226).

Figure 1. Picture of the effect Cameraria ohridella has on horse-chestnut leaves. Picture from Pocock and Evans, authors of the paper.

Using the diagram in figure 2, we scored the level of damage to leaves from 0 to 4. Photos were also taken and sent to the authors using a smartphone app, this let the expert recorder confirm the accuracy of our results. 

Figure 2. Diagram of how to score the damage to the horse-chestnut leaves. Diagram from Pocock and Evans, authors of the paper.

The study found that leaves were more damaged when there were more leaf-mining moths residing in the leaf and that the level of damage increased rapidly in the first 3 years of infection but levelled off after that. The authors then found that the level of parasitism of the leaf-miner moths increased after this period, due to parasites already in the area multiplying vastly by taking advantage of the increased numbers of moths in which to reproduce.

Figure 3. Picture of the Leaf-Miner moth, Cameraria ohridella, in 2009 taken by Pete Boardman at FSC Preston Montford, Shrewsbury.

Interested in becoming a citizen surveyor? The following link has a great summary of easy, quick surveys across the field of biology. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/22694347).

For more information about Leaf-Mining moths, why not book yourself onto the Identifying Moth Leaf-Mines course at FSC London on the 11^th or 25^th October 2014?