A citizen science photo guide of plants and bee visitors in the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot of Kenya

Abstract

The influence of global change on species assemblage patterns is on the rise with evidence showing a steady decline in pollinator communities across the globe. As such, the implementation of rigorous monitoring efforts aimed at documenting the actual status of pollinators is of essence especially in the tropics. This can be possible through participatory studies with volunteers (citizen scientists) that emphasizes on apriori research hypotheses with the aim to draw inferences on the potential drivers of species community assemblage patterns. In ecology, photos have the ability to drive change and can provide unbiased evidence on species existence with a potential to compare changes over time and space. However, in the tropics and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, such ideas fall short of public participation. In this study, we aimed to assess and digitally document plants and their bee visitors as important data sources with immense potential to improve on the knowledge and awareness of the different plants and bee species in two counties of Kenya (Taita and Muranga). Our results showed marked differences in bee community assemblage patterns between the two counties, with a huge number of unique species between them. We successfully digitalised and present photos of 114 bee and 262 plant species. Using these digitalised photographs, we herein elaborate on the community assemblage patterns of plants and their bee pollinators in the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot (EABH) of Kenya and further discuss the importance of exploiting images for research in biodiversity and conservation. We therefore conclude that, technological advances that helps in digitalising species through photography can be important in the successful implementation of community based environmental threat management agendas.