The DRY project and the ‘City Nature Challenge’

This year (2018) Bristol and Bath will be showing the World how amazing our region is for people and wildlife by taking part in the City Nature Challenge. The event which is part of the Bristol Festival of Nature aims to record as many different species between 27 – 30 April.

What is the City Nature Challenge?

In 2016 staff at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles and California Academy of Sciences decided to capitalise on the friendly rivalry between Los Angeles and San Francisco by holding a citizen science event to explore urban biodiversity. The event was so successful that in one week 1000 people between them made over 20,000 observations, including many new records. In 2017 it was extended to other cities in the USA and in 2018 has become an international event with 65 cities on 5 continents taking part. There is a free app ‘i-naturalist’ that works with apple or android devices to help people record and submit their findings.

The DRY project is taking part in the City Nature Challenge by holding an open day at our field site near the University of the West of England Frenchay campus.

We will be showing people the experiment that has been set up to learn more about the effects of drought on grassland plants and their pollinators, explaining what we are measuring and why, and showing some preliminary results.

The field in which the experiment is sited has a very interesting flora and population of insects; we hope that people will join us to make a survey transect across the field and submit their findings to the Bristol regional Environmental Records Centre.

This is a great chance to take part in an international event and to learn a little bit more about your region.

More information about how to get involved and to book can be found on the Bristol Festival of Nature website http://www.bnhc.org.uk/festival-of-nature/events-and-hubs/

Or by contacting the DRY project team on DRY@uwe.ac.uk

Sarah Ayling