Understanding Pollination in Urban Food Production: The Importance of Data Validation and Participant Feedback for Citizen Science Project Design

Urban agriculture depends on insect pollination, but knowledge gaps persist due to difficulties accessing diverse growing spaces.

By Elizabeth Nicholls, Leah Salm, Maria Clara Castellanos, Parthiba Basu, Soumik Chaterjee, Adrian Ely, Helena Howe, Dave Goulson
The New Phytologist Foundation
03 September 2025

Abstract:

Urban agriculture depends on insect pollination, but knowledge gaps persist due to difficulties accessing diverse growing spaces. We developed a citizen science approach for monitoring insect visits to crops and compared grower-collected data to that of a trained researcher while also gathering participant feedback. Although trends in crop attractiveness were similar, discrepancies highlighted limitations in the reliability of citizen-collected data alone. This work shows that grower involvement can enhance ecological monitoring and awareness, but methodological support and ongoing dialogue are essential to improve data quality and engagement, both key considerations for future urban food policy and practice.

Summary

There is a significant knowledge gap regarding the pollination needs of urban farming, partly because accessing urban growing spaces requires permission from multiple different landowners and growers, which can be laborious. Involving growers in data collection offers a potential solution but presents other challenges in terms of data accuracy and participant retention.

We developed a citizen science methodology for monitoring plant–pollinator interactions in urban food systems and evaluated the accuracy of data collected by growers by comparison to data collected by a professionally trained researcher. We also collected feedback from participants at the mid- and endpoints of the project regarding their experiences of taking part.

While there was some agreement between the datasets in terms of the crops most (raspberries and squash) and least attractive (tomatoes) to insects, relying only on the dataset collected by growers themselves would lead to an overestimation of the generality of relationships between crops and pollinating insects in urban food production. Possible reasons for discrepancies between the datasets include species misidentification and non-reporting of surveys where no insects were observed by citizen scientists.

Citizen scientists reported lack of time, concerns about data accuracy and too complex methods as barriers to participation. Implementation of their suggestions for improvements led to a 66% increase in participation in the following year, demonstrating the importance of maintaining a two-way dialogue between participants and project organisers. Citizen scientists reported an increased appreciation and understanding of insect pollinations following participation, highlighting additional benefits of involving urban growers in data collection.

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