The first results are published!

For a scientist, one of the measures of good quality science is for the work to be 'peer-reviewed' (assessed by other scientists) and published in a scientific journal.

So, is Conker Tree Science good quality science? The answer is a definite 'yes' because today the first scientific paper from the project was published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE!

Anyone can read about the scientific results of the project on the PLOS ONE website.

 

The paper is quite detailed but the simple summary of the paper is as follows:

• Can ordinary people do real, important and interesting science? Yes, most definitely!

• How bad is the damage caused by the moth? Pretty bad - within 3 years of the moth arriving in a location it looks like autumn has come early to the conker trees.

• Why is the moth doing so well at damaging our conker trees? We discovered one reason is because the natural pest-controllers (tiny parasitic wasps) are just not occurring in large enough numbers.

Once again, the mention of a threat to conker trees in a press release and the nation's media gets excited. So far we have seen that the Conker Tree Science project has featured in:

• The Independent
• The Daily Mail
• The Yorkshire Post 
• Wired online
• Planet Earth Online 
• Interviews with BBC Radios Oxford and Berkshire
• And last but not least, a mention on Steve Wright on BBC Radio 2

So once again a thank you to all those who participated in the project and contributed data.

Conker Tree Science records 2010-2013

I've just discovered CartoDB which is a new programme for simply visualising graphically data.
Here are the nearly ten thousand records (9129 be precise) that were submitted over the last 4 years via the Conker Tree Science website or the LeafWatch smartphone app. The image cycles through the time from June 2010 until the end of 2013.

White shows where the horse-chestnut leaf-miner was recorded to be absent, while yellow through to red shows increasing levels of damage.

It is worth noting that this map includes all records of the horse-chestnut leaf-miner including unverified records. In the formal maps of distribution (here) only verified records were included. So far the moth has not be confirmed north of Newcastle. Up to 2010 It spread through Britain at about 20km per year but strangely has been stuck at Newcastle for the past 3 years.

Thank you to everyone who took part in Conker Tree Science and made this possible. The first scientific paper from the project is being released tonight, which is very exciting. More news on that in the morning!