Morgan Morrison is a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London and works on pollinator conservation and citizen intervention. She gave a talk to us earlier this year about her work.

She is now looking for volunteers for the second year of the citizen science study called ‘Optimow’.

She explains: “This study will be looking into how you can manage your gardens to help bees, butterflies and other pollinators. In the study, you will be given a mowing frequency to follow and then you will count pollinators in your garden each week. The study will take 15-25 minutes a week for 12 weeks (however odd weeks can be missed!)

This is the second year of the study. In 2023, we had an amazing 180 participants and saw a 75% increase in pollinator numbers by following one of the mowing regimes!! We hope to build on this work, so we have robust advice to give members of the public about managing their lawns to help pollinators. However, this work relies on the amazing volunteers who contribute!!

I hoped the study would interest to all of you and you’d have a good skill set to complete it. If you are interested in taking part you can sign up and find more information on the google form below (https://forms.gle/scmLF3h1XvoHTkcSA).”