Honors Theses
Advisor
Chelse Prather, Ph.D.
Department
Biology
Publication Date
4-22-2026
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Abstract
As city populations grow, the need for fresh produce in cities to feed people also grows. One such growing urban environment is Dayton, Ohio, which has begun to implement measures aiming to limit the hunger experienced by underserved individuals in the city. According to The Dayton Food Bank, in Montgomery County alone 14.2% of individuals living in the county experience food insecurity, a majority of whom are children. Urban farming has proven to be a lucrative solution to some of these issues. However, these farms are often established in areas where the soil is degraded due to previous land use, which could pose challenges in growing crops in cities, and it is unknown what practices are most effective in restoring soil in urban agriculture. I hypothesized that farms which were closer to urban areas would contain a higher presence of heavy metals than those of peri-urban farms, farms who were run by individuals knowledgeable in soil ecology would have healthier overall nutritional and moisture content, and farms with healthier soil composition would experience a higher abundance of pollinator diversity. We surveyed 18 local urban and peri-urban farmers about their understanding of the health of their soil, the practices they use to rejuvenate the soil, and what they were doing to promote pollinators. At each site, we took three soil cores from inside agricultural plots while three were taken outside of the agricultural plots. These soil samples were then analyzed for soil bulk density, moisture concentration, pH, and conductivity. The samples were then analyzed for various heavy metals including zinc, arsenic, and lead. Understanding the ecology of soil in urban farms and how to rejuvenate this soil can provide essential steps to creating sustainable farming habitats, and help create healthier methods for producing large-scale, nutritious food for many communities.
Permission Statement
This item is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code) and may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Keywords
Undergraduate research
eCommons Citation
Fisher, Penelope, "Heavy Metal, Heavy Costs: Soil Copper Contamination Undermines Bee Communities in Urban Agriculture" (2026). Honors Theses. 505.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/uhp_theses/505
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