Local Environment Attachment and the Possibility of Using Citizen Science Approaches to Measure Firefly Populations in Time and Place
Year: 2012
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: While the number of conservation projects has increased domestically and worldwide, many environment education programs have failed to fulfill their goals of encouraging the citizens to actively adopt pro-environment behaviors.To investigate the potential correlation between people's environment attachment and people's tendency to perform pro-environment behaviors, a survey was conducted in the rural part of Wayne County, OH in 2009.The result of the survey research shows a significant correlation between people's attachment to the natural environment and their tendency to participate in certain kinds of pro-environment behaviors.Such finding supplements the previous research on the relationship between place attachment and pro-environment behaviors.The survey results from my 2009 survey show that these local citizens tend to associate fireflies with good environment quality.A literature review yielded little evidence to support or reject such hypothesis.One major reason for the lack of research on the relationship between fireflies and the natural environment was because of the lack of suitable technology to monitor firefly activities in the field.I developed a new timed sequential digital photographic method to monitor firefly flashing activities in their natural habitats.Such method has potential for engaging citizens into environment education programs.I used this method to collect data on the West Badger Farm near iii Wooster, OH in 2009.The results showed that this method could capture the flashing activities of different firefly species and was sensitive to the changes of the flashing activities.The two species of fireflies I studied showed similar responses to climatic factors, but different responses to landscape types and farming practices.The data also suggested that these two firefly species were active at the same time during the night, contrary to previous studies that classified them into different active groups ("earlyactive" vs. "late-active").iv Dedication This document is dedicated to the fireflies and the hope that they can be used as an indicator to improve environmental quality v Acknowledgments Most of my appreciation goes to my advisor, Richard Moore.I could not make it to this point without his thorough support through all these years I have been in the Environmental Science Graduate Program.Maurea Al-khouri, the program administrative secretary, was helpful in arranging dates and rooms and keeping me up to date on deadlines.I thank my other dissertation committee members, Jeremy Bruskotter, and Joe Kovach.They helped me to form my dissertation's topic and to conduct the research
Author: Yang Xing
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2338840485