SP0267: Macdonald Campus Native Pollinator Habitat

McGill University’s Macdonald Campus is invested in teaching, studying and innovating in the field of environmental sustainability. John Abbott College teaches a full range of CEGEP level programs and is also invested in taking a leadership role in reducing its environmental impact. For example, they created a sustainability position (Shannon Coulter-Low fills this), and in 2010-2012 they build the LEED gold certified Anne-Marie Edward Building. This Pollinator Habitat project would be a new joint campus sustainability project; bringing these two campus communities together, we hope to foster other sustainability collaborations. We also aim to showcase how best to support wild bees and other pollinators, so that our staff and students can be ambassadors for their own communities. Native pollinator populations are largely under pressure because of habitat loss, and home gardens and other greenspaces can be managed differently to provide habitat; for example, through pesticide-free green space management, which Macdonald campus adheres to. Within several different initiatives outside this project, native species habitat is being created, for example through the planting of native nectaring trees and shrubs this past fall, a project that went ahead while following safety protocols for COVID. As part of this native pollinator project, permanent signage at John Abbott and Macdonald would educate visitors about how to care for bees and other insects. In particular, we would like to inform people how they can do more by choosing low-cost and more effective solutions to support native bees than the store-bought bee homes that often don’t provide ideal conditions and can lead to greater bee mortality, as well as promote the planting of native plant species. Ground nesting and cavity nesting habitat would be created with logs/created snags with drilled holes and through small bare-ground sections of well drained soil for ground nesting species. We would also engage students on the two campuses byhosting monitoring and habitat cleaning and maintenance sessions in the spring and fall, that could either be run with a general call for volunteers (this is the plan for 2021) or associated with particular classes (courses with possible overlap: AEBI 210, ENVB 210, ENTO 340, ENTO 440, PLNT 460, WILD 401). This would also be an opportunity for McGill students to gain practice leading more junior students, since CEGEP students are at the grade 12-13 and freshmen level. Long-term documentation of this project would come from the McGill University Herbarium. The monitoring protocol and habitat designs have oversight from Dr. Gail MacInnis, a pollination biologist.