Independent Research Projects with Pollinators

Students can gain experience planning, conducting, and presenting their own scientific investigations while contributing to an important data set investigating plant-animal interactions.

Student groups can consolidate their own data using a Budburst Group and/or utilize data submitted to our public database by other Budburst participants.

Students may choose to investigate questions such as:

• How does flower morphology relate to the type of pollinator a plant attracts?

• How does the timing of flowering relate to the type of pollinator a plant attracts?

• Do taller plants attract more pollinators?

• Do native and invasive plants have different levels of pollinator activity?

• Do pollinators prefer native plants or their cultivated counterparts (nativars)? (see our Nativars project)

• Do monarch butterflies prefer to lay their eggs on flowering or non-flowering plants? (see our Milkweeds & Monarchs Project)