The Evolution Megalab

Introduction

This case study was presented by: Peter Skelton, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, the Open University. In addition to the Evolution Megalab and 99% Ape - how evolution adds up, Peter Skelton chairs the Open University's Evolution course. Peter's own research focuses on the evolution of an extinct group of bivalves ("clams"). He has published numerous papers on evolutionary palaeontology as well as editing a number of books, including The Cretaceous World.

Background

Scientists have been studying the banded snail for many years and have found that the darker shell types tend to be more common in woodland where the background colour is brown, while in grass banded snails tend to be lighter-coloured, yellow and with more stripes. Why is this? Has the geographical pattern in the colour of shells changed in response to the warming of the climate over the last 30 years? The Evolution MegaLab, part of the Darwin anniversary celebrations, was launched in March 2009 to find out.

Based on a website, it uses the power of the internet to involve members of the public in a large-scale 'citizen science' survey of the banded snail species, Cepaea nemoralis (dark-lipped) and C. hortensis (white-lipped).

The reason these snails were chosen is that a large body of work on them already exists, going back over a century. They are also conveniently widespread and locally abundant, easily observed and identified, harmless, and don't fly or scuttle away.  Hence they offer a complex, richly illustrative, but tractable case study for active public engagement in evolutionary science.

Summary

The project is based on a website where registered participants can first learn how to identify the snails, assisted by an interactive quiz, and about relevant aspects of their natural history, then upload data from their own local surveys, for which they receive individualised feedback via email, including a comparison with any nearby historical records throughout Europe.  Since its public launch, the site has received over 7,500 records, which are being checked for reliability. The screened records will be statistically analysed together with the historical data.  The main results will be submitted for publication in a major scientific journal and disseminated in popular media during 2010, following which the site will remain active for some years as a resource for general research and teaching purposes.

The amounts of planning, funding, work input and public profiling required for such a project are considerable.  The originator of the concept, Professor Jonathan Silvertown (OU Professor of Ecology), was joined by a sizeable scientific, administrative and technical team in the construction of the website, which took some three years of preparation prior to its public launch and over £100,000 of external funding, chiefly from the Royal Society and the British Council, together with support from the Open University.  Public profiling included numerous media interviews and articles, exhibitions (most notably at the Royal Society summer exhibition in June 2009), brochures and postcards.  But behind all that was the driving force of a great idea that caught the imagination of all who were involved.

Points discussed

Peter suggested that the route to participation needs to be short and that they had found that using readily available software such as Google Maps can help the process. He commented that they had an impressive 7500 uploads, yet only 1/10 actually did the quiz on the website. Some of the problems include difficulty in getting the balance right, between sharing and giving results and that the reliability of data is unknown as there may be duplicate uploads and incorrect IDs.  

You can find out more information at the Evolution MegaLab website.