Education Maintenance Allowance Pilots for Vulnerable Young People and Childcare Pilots : implementation and reported impacts in the first two years (2000-2001/2001-2002)

This is the second and final report of the evaluation of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) Vulnerable Pilots. These pilots were introduced by the Department for Education and Employment (now the Department for Education and Skills) in 2000 and extended the scope of the main EMA pilots by focusing on young people believed to be especially vulnerable to economic and social exclusion in four LEA areas. The evaluation has focused on three specific groups of young people who were the original focus of the Vulnerable Pilots, young people who are homeless, teenage parents and young people with disabilities. The definition of ‘vulnerability’ has since been widened to encompass many more young people, such as young offenders and those who finish compulsory education with no or low qualifications

Bee abundance and species richness across different management practices.

A) Bee abundance across managed suburban, managed urban, and unmanaged urban treatments. B) Bee species richness across managed suburban, managed urban, and unmanaged urban treatments.</p

Map of urban green spaces categorizing of management status and points representing observed bee species richness.

Blue squares are unmanaged urban sites, green triangles are managed urban sites, red points are managed suburban sites. Basemap generated in ggmap [23] using a Stamen basemap (Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under ODbL).</p

Site bee abundances.

Summary of site bee abundance, richness and sampling effort. (DOCX)</p

S1 File -

As cities become more populated and the density of urban development increases, local biodiversity is threatened. Urban greenspaces have the capacity to preserve pollinator biodiversity, but the quality of support they provide depends on greenspace landscape attributes, including the availability of pollinator habitat and foraging resources. Wild native bees provide important pollination services to urban ecosystems, yet relatively little is known about how urban landscape management influences pollinator community composition and diversity. Our study explores how wild bee communities are affected by greenspace and landscape-level features like pollinator management practices, in urban greenspaces in and around Appleton Wisconsin: a mid-sized urban community spanning more than 100 sq. km. We sampled and identified native bees periodically between late-May 2017 and mid-September of 2018 using standardized arrays of pan traps at 15 sites around the city. We classified greenspaces based on their level of development (urban or suburban) and whether they were managed or unmanaged for increasing wild pollinator diversity. We quantified floral species diversity, floral color diversity, tree species diversity, and proximity of sites to open water for each site and used remotely sensed satellite data from both the USGS National Land Cover Database (NLCD) and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). All variables were tested as potential correlates of wild bee abundance and species richness. Active pollinator management sites supported higher levels of bee abundance and richness. Notably, active greenspace management (e.g. planting native wildflowers) was a stronger correlate of bee abundance and richness than greenspace size and other landscape-level attributes. Within-greenspace attributes such as floral diversity, tree diversity, and proximity to open water contributed positively to both bee abundance and richness. Based on these findings, we suggest that urban greenspaces may be managed more efficiently and cost-effectively by focusing resources on active management by planting wildflowers, removing invasive species, creating nesting habitat, and providing water resources, rather than simply expanding in area.</div

Schematic of field sampling design.

Photos of (A) a multicolored pan trap and (B) a blue vane trap at a field site. Photos: M. Anderson. (PNG)</p

Wild bee species abundances.

Summary of total abundances of all wild bee species collected across all sites. (DOCX)</p

Summary of likelihood ratio test (LRT) results for each variable included in the best-fit models for bee species richness bee abundance.

Summary of likelihood ratio test (LRT) results for each variable included in the best-fit models for bee species richness bee abundance.</p

Summary of global and best fit GLMs.

The response variables in each model are either bee species richness or abundances. The global model includes all potential explanatory variables while the best fit model is reduced based on AIC values to only the variables that contribute significantly. The estimate values represent the directionality of the association between the response and predictor variables.</p

Total bee abundance from 2017–2018.

Total bee abundance observed at each site over the course of two field seasons from 2017–2018. (PNG)</p