Orchid Observers is a collaboration between the museum and Zooniverse, the citizen science platform established at the University of Oxford. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

A citizen science project to study when and where orchids bloom around the UK has already revealed 200 new flowering locations for particular species. Members of the public are submitting and identifying orchid photos, and also annotating historical specimens. Called Orchid Observers, the initiative aims to measure the effect of warming, and other environmental changes, on the distribution of 29 different orchids. Orchid Observers is a collaboration between the museum and Zooniverse, the citizen science platform established at the University of Oxford. The data it yields will not only be used by researchers at the museum, but will feed into the biological records data held by the BSBI.

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