In the summer of 2021, first-year Natural Sciences student Francesca Toccaceli worked with King’s Research Fellow Dr Cicely Marshall on a project entitled ‘Biodiversity at King’s: evaluating the Cambridge Biodiversity Metric for use on the College estate’. During the project Francesca carried out a biodiversity monitoring survey at Grantchester Meadows, King’s wildflower meadow, King’s Back Lawn and Scholars’ Piece.
The biodiversity monitoring survey looked at recording the species diversity and richness of plants, invertebrates, small mammals and bats. Bat species number and activity were measured using traps on Scholars' Piece, King’s meadow and King’s Backs. The traps recorded bat calls and from their call identified the species. Francesca measured which small mammal species were present using Longworth traps placed in the meadow and on Scholars' Piece. Invertebrate species were recorded by collecting individuals from the meadow and Back Lawn using sweep nets.
Francesca also recorded moth species on the meadow using a moth trap, which contributed to data taken over the months preceding her project, as part of the Garden Moth Scheme. Finally, data on plants on the King’s Back Lawn and wildflower meadow was collected using quadrats down a transect, as a measure of species richness, and a checklist of all the meadow and Back Lawn species was compiled to quantify species diversity.
The results of Francesca’s research were collated into a biodiversity baseline survey, which has since been used to write a Biodiversity Action Plan tailored to the College. The data was also used to quantify the added-value to biodiversity that the meadow has provided, and to compare the biodiversity and species richness of the meadow compared with the previous year.
