{"id":3114,"date":"2015-12-11T13:18:54","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T19:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/for-wisconsin\/?post_type=campus_story&p=3114"},"modified":"2015-12-11T13:18:54","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T19:18:54","slug":"uw-milwaukees-green-roofs-provide-important-habitat-for-bees","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-milwaukees-green-roofs-provide-important-habitat-for-bees\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Milwaukee\u2019s green roofs provide important habitat for bees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Research<\/a>
Research done by Conservation and Environmental Science majors Amanda Pastirik, left, and Meghan Wersel shows UW-Milwaukee\u2019s green roofs provide important habitat for bees. (UWM Photo\/Troye Fox)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UWM was abuzz this summer \u2013 especially on campus roofs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where Conservation and Environmental Science majors Amanda Pastirik and Meghan Wersel spent much of their break, laying the groundwork for a long-term research project on the presence of pollinators \u2013 specifically honeybees and bumblebees \u2013 on the university\u2019s green roofs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of concern about pollinators. They are suffering from loss of habitat. They are suffering from pesticide use. They\u2019re really important both in natural systems and in agriculture, and people haven\u2019t been paying enough attention to pollinators, so their numbers are declining,\u201d explained Gretchen Meyer, manager of the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin (UWM) Field Station. Meyer is running the long-term research project with Mai Phillips, coordinator of the CES program, and recruited Pastirik and Wersel to do the initial data collection.<\/p>\n

Green roofs are stretches of plantings on the tops of buildings. They provide several benefits, including capturing and filtering storm water, lowering the overall temperature in cities, and reducing costs for building heating and cooling. And, Meyer said, the roofs could provide an urban habitat for pollinators who have few other places to go \u2013 but there\u2019s no data to say for certain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea behind this project \u2026 is to see if the pollinators were using the green roofs, and then, as a comparison, add one of the prairie plantings to see if the patches of green roof are similar to other little patches of habitat on campus,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n

Pastirik and Wersel began collecting data in June. Each week for about two months, they visited two of UWM\u2019s six green roofs, located atop Golda Meir Library and Sandburg Hall. For 10 minutes at a time, they sat and watched a small patch of roof \u2013 about a quarter-meter squared \u2013 and took an inventory of the bees that flew through the plantings. The library roof is covered with sedum, the most widely used plant for green roofs, while the Sandburg roof is home to a variety of prairie plantings and vegetables.<\/p>\n

The students also checked the number of bees frequenting small sections of UWM\u2019s spiral garden, a ground-level patch of prairie plantings near the Norris Health Center.<\/p>\n

The results surprised them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first week we went out was very exciting because we were expecting to be very bored and to sit there for 30 minutes and maybe see (one) bee,\u201d Pastirik said. \u201cInstead, we were seeing 10 bees in our 10-minute observation period. \u2026 They\u2019re using the habitat, which is the main thing we wanted to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students had expected the spiral garden to be more appealing than the roofs because of its ground level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost the opposite,\u201d Wersel said. \u201cThe first day that I went up to Sandburg\u2019s roof, I saw at least 15 bees in my quadrat, which was totally unexpected.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s important because bees play an essential role in plant reproduction. Bumblebees are especially crucial; certain plants, like tomatoes, can only reproduce with \u201cbuzz pollination,\u201d meaning their pollen is released only at the specific sound frequency generated by a bumblebee\u2019s buzz.<\/p>\n

While the results are preliminary and the study won\u2019t be complete for some time, Wersel and Pastirik think their initial findings have positive implications for green roofs, pollinators and Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world\u2019s getting more populated. Cities are getting bigger. More buildings are getting built. It\u2019s important to have an urban environment where these bees can go,\u201d Wersel said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like (green roofs are) a super-difficult thing to implement either. I think we have to let people know that it is easy and it does work, and it is a good environment for bees. There\u2019s a lot of benefits to it, and I hope people will see that from our research.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Sarah Vickery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UWM was abuzz this summer \u2013 especially on campus roofs. That\u2019s where Conservation and Environmental Science majors Amanda Pastirik and Meghan Wersel spent much of their break, laying the groundwork for a long-term research project on the presence of pollinators \u2013 specifically honeybees and bumblebees \u2013 on the university\u2019s green roofs. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[107],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-3114","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-milwaukee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/3114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=3114"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=3114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}