Rob Dunn’s lab at North Carolina State University has been mounting some ambitious Citizen Science initiatives. First Belly Button Biodiversity, and now Ants:
The School of Ants project is a citizen-scientist driven study of the ants that live in urban areas, particularly around homes and schools. Collection kits are available to anyone interested in participating –teachers, students, parents, kids, junior-scientists, senior citizens and enthusiasts of all stripes are involved in collecting ants in schoolyards and backyards using a standardized protocol so that we can make detailed maps of the wildlife that lives just outside our doorsteps. The maps that we create with these data are telling us quite a lot about native and introduced ants in cities, not just here in North Carolina, but across the United States and, as this project grows, about the ants of the world!
I’ve just ordered a kit. Once it arrives I’ll blog the collection and submission of ants from my city block.
Very cool! I’ll see if I can get my in-laws in Durham to participate, fingers crossed for Amblyopone trigonignatha.
Probably can’t get A. trigonignatha with the kit, but it would be great if it could be re-rediscovered.
Isn’t it cookies? I thought everyone liked cookies.
Only if they’re live geophilomorph centipede cookies.
Now that sounds like an interesting recipe.
very cool!!
Excellent. I think this is such a very good idea for a variety of reasons. I think I will get a kit, too. And see if I can talk my niece and parents to do this as well. Then, they can also pass it along. The more the merrier.