Download or read book Assessing Pollinator Friendliness of Plants and Designing Mixes to Restore Habitat for Bees written by Will Glenny and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The worldwide decline in bee populations is threatening the delivery of pollination services, thus leading to the development of pollinator restoration strategies. In the United States, one way to protect and restore bee populations is to use seed mixes composed of pollinator-friendly native plants to revegetate federal lands following disturbance. However, we lack information about which native plant species and mixes are best for bees. We assessed the attractiveness and use by bees of 24 native plant species that are standard for revegetation projects (focal plants) on national forest lands in western Montana. Focal plants that had the highest visitation rate, attracted the most bee species, supported specialist bee species, and bloomed for extended periods across the landscape were considered “pollinator-friendly.” Our results suggest that Salix bebbiana, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Lupinus sericeus, Rosa woodsii, Symphoricarpos albus, Erigeron speciosus, Symphyotrichum foliaceum, and Gaillardia aristata could create a seed mix that is effective for pollinator restoration on public lands. Pollinator-friendliness score cards are provided to allow land managers to select plant species to include in restoration mixes that benefit pollinators. Identifying mixes of pollinator-friendly native plant species that are available for restoration will allow land managers to both revegetate disturbed habitats and restore bee communities on federal lands. The methods developed in this project can be used to design seed mixes for pollinator restoration on other public lands.
Download or read book 100 Plants to Feed the Bees written by The Xerces Society and published by Storey Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The international bee crisis is threatening our global food supply, but this user-friendly field guide shows what you can do to help protect our pollinators. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation offers browsable profiles of 100 common flowers, herbs, shrubs, and trees that support bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. The recommendations are simple: pick the right plants for pollinators, protect them from pesticides, and provide abundant blooms throughout the growing season by mixing perennials with herbs and annuals! 100 Plants to Feed the Bees will empower homeowners, landscapers, apartment dwellers — anyone with a scrap of yard or a window box — to protect our pollinators.
Download or read book From Nursery to Nature written by Annie S. White and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is growing awareness about the value of preserving and restoring floral-rich habitats for the benefit of pollinators, especially native bees. The increasing demand for native plants in pollinator habitat restoration and other ecological landscaping applications, combined with the desire for more robust and predictable plant habits, have led to the selection and breeding of native cultivars. Yet, little is known about how these cultivated varieties differ from the native species in their ability to attract and support pollinators. I compared flower visitation by all insect pollinators to 12 native herbaceous plant species and 14 native cultivars in a replicated field experiment at two sites over two years. I classified insect pollinators during visual field observations into seven taxonomic and functional groups. I found seven native species to be visited significantly more frequently by all insect pollinators (combined) than their cultivars, four were visited equally, and one native cultivar was visited more frequently than the native species. Bees (both native and non-native) and moths/butterflies exhibited similar preferences, whereas flies showed no preference between the native species and the native cultivar. Our study shows that many insect pollinators prefer to forage on native species over cultivated varieties of the native species, but not always, and not exclusively. Some native cultivars may be comparable substitions for native species in pollinator habitat restoration projects, but all cultivars should be evaluated on an individual basis. Plant selection is integral to the value and success of pollinator habitat restorations, yet there is little consistency and overlap in pollinator planting recommendations and very little empirical data to support plant choice. Non peer-reviewed pollinator plant lists are widely available and are often region-specific, but they are typically based on anecdotal rather than empirical data and lack in specificity. To help close the gap between anecdotal and empirical data, and between practice and research, I reviewed the published literature on plant selection for pollinator habitat restoration. I explicitly reviewed and compared the value of native plant species, near-natives, non-natives and native cultivars. From there, I identified gaps in the literature that are most needed in practice and recommended basic strategies for practitioners to navigate plant lists and choose the best plants for a site's success.
Download or read book Pollinator Gardening for the South written by Danesha Seth Carley and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-02-06 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This step-by-step guide will answer all of your questions about how to create beautiful gardens designed to welcome beneficial pollinators across the South. Combining up-to-date scientific information with artful design strategies, Danesha Seth Carley and Anne M. Spafford teach gardeners of all levels to plan, plant, and maintain successful pollinator gardens at home and in shared community sites. Everyday gardeners, along with farmers, scientists, and policy makers, share serious concerns about ongoing declines in bee and other pollinator populations, and here Spafford and Carley deliver great news: every thoughtfully designed garden, no matter how small, can play a huge role in providing the habitat, nourishment, and nesting places so needed by pollinators. This book explains all you need to be a pollinator champion. *Covers USDA hardiness zones 6, 7, 8, and 9, including twelve southern states *Explains what makes pollinators happy—bees, for sure, and many others, great and small *Brings science and art together in gardens of all types, including urban, food, container, community, school, and large-scale gardens *Provides step-by-step instructions for choosing locations, preparing soil and garden beds, selecting the best plants, considering seasonality in your garden design, managing your garden throughout the year, and much more *Richly illustrated with photographs, design plans, and handy charts and lists
Download or read book The Pollinator Victory Garden written by Kim Eierman and published by Quarry Books. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The passion and urgency that inspired WWI and WWII Victory Gardens is needed today to meet another threat to our food supply and our environment—the steep decline of pollinators. The Pollinator Victory Garden offers practical solutions for winning the war against the demise of these essential animals. Pollinators are critical to our food supply and responsible for the pollination of the vast majority of all flowering plants on our planet. Pollinators include not just bees, but many different types of animals, including insects and mammals. Beetles, bats, birds, butterflies, moths, flies, and wasps can be pollinators. But, many pollinators are in trouble, and the reality is that most of our landscapes have little to offer them. Our residential and commercial landscapes are filled with vast green pollinator deserts, better known as lawns. These monotonous green expanses are ecological wastelands for bees and other pollinators. With The Pollinator Victory Garden, you can give pollinators a fighting chance. Learn how to transition your landscape into a pollinator haven by creating a habitat that includes pollinator nutrition, larval host plants for butterflies and moths, and areas for egg laying, nesting, sheltering, overwintering, resting, and warming. Find a wealth of information to support pollinators while improving the environment around you: • The importance of pollinators and the specific threats to their survival• How to provide food for pollinators using native perennials, trees, and shrubs that bloom in succession• Detailed profiles of the major pollinator types and how to attract and support each one• Tips for creating and growing a Pollinator Victory Garden, including site assessment, planning, and planting goals• Project ideas like pollinator islands, enriched landscape edges, revamped foundation plantings, meadowscapes, and other pollinator-friendly lawn alternatives The time is right for a new gardening movement. Every yard, community garden, rooftop, porch, patio, commercial, and municipal landscape can help to win the war against pollinator decline with The Pollinator Victory Garden.
Download or read book Status of Pollinators in North America written by National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on the Status of Pollinators in North America and published by . This book was released on 2007-04-24 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pollinators—insects, birds, bats, and other animals that carry pollen from the male to the female parts of flowers for plant reproduction—are an essential part of natural and agricultural ecosystems throughout North America. For example, most fruit, vegetable, and seed crops and some crops that provide fiber, drugs, and fuel depend on animals for pollination. This book provides evidence for the decline of some pollinator species in North America, including America’s most important managed pollinator, the honeybee, as well as some butterflies, bats, and hummingbirds. For most managed and wild pollinator species, however, population trends have not been assessed because populations have not been monitored over time. In addition, for wild species with demonstrated declines, it is often difficult to determine the causes or consequences of their decline. This book outlines priorities for research and monitoring that are needed to improve information on the status of pollinators and establishes a framework for conservation and restoration of pollinator species and communities.
Download or read book Pollinators of Native Plants written by Heather Holm and published by . This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This comprehensive, essential book profiles over 65 perennial native plant species of the Midwest, Great Lakes region, Northeast and southern Canada plus the pollinators, beneficial insects and flower visitors the plants attract ... Readers learn to attract and identify pollinators and beneficial insects as well as customize their landscape planting for a particular type of pollinator with native plants. The book includes information on pollination, types of pollinators, pollinator conservation as well as pollinator landscape plans."--
Download or read book Pollinator Conservation Handbook written by Matthew Shepherd and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Pollinator Conservation Handbook is an indispensable resource for gardeners, farmers, and managers of parks, recreational areas, and wild lands. It will guide you through the steps for creating and improving habitat for insect pollinators, including selecting and planting forage flowers, providing nesting and egg-laying sites, and caring for your pollinator habitat over time. The Handbook also contains an extensive resources section and ideas for educational activities." --Amazon.
Download or read book Protecting Pollinators written by Jodi Helmer and published by . This book was released on 2019-04-18 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We should thank a pollinator at every meal. These diminutive creatures fertilize a third of the crops we eat. Yet half of the 200,000 species of pollinators are threatened. Birds, bats, insects, and many other pollinators are disappearing, putting our entire food supply in jeopardy. Protecting Pollinators breaks down the latest science on environmental threats and takes readers inside the most promising conservation efforts. Efforts range from cities creating butterfly highways to citizen scientists monitoring migration. Along with inspiring stories of revival and lessons from failed projects, readers will find practical tips to get involved. And they will be reminded of the magic of pollinators--the iconic monarchs, dainty hummingbirds, and homely bats alike who bring food to our tables.
Download or read book Pollinators and Pollinator Habitat on Federal Lands written by Casey Roberts and published by Nova Science Publishers. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pollinators are essential to the United States economy. Honey bees, native bees, birds, bats, butterflies, and other species contribute substantially to our food production systems, the economic vitality of the agricultural sector, and the health of the environment. On June 20, 2014, the President issued a memorandum directing the heads of executive departments and agencies to create a Federal strategy promoting the health of honey bees and other pollinators. The Presidential Memorandum envisioned broad engagement to improve the management of Federal buildings, landscapes, rangelands and forests to increase and improve pollinator habitat nationally. The objective of this book is to consolidate general information about practices and procedures to use when considering pollinator needs in project development and management of Federal lands that are managed for native diversity and multiple uses. This book also provides guidance and recommendations for creating and maintaining quality habitats for pollinators in new construction, building renovations, landscaping improvements, and in facility leasing agreements at Federal facilities and on Federal lands.
Download or read book From the Ground Up written by Sarah Kania and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The diversity and productivity of many terrestrial ecosystems is dependent on robust pollinator communities. When designing, establishing, or restoring pollinator habitat, abiotic and biotic factors that affect floral resource availability must be considered to better inform practices. These factors include variation in cultivars or genotypes of focal plants, floral area and morphology, background pollinator community, and site characteristics, including the quality and nutritional composition of the soil. In this thesis, I explore these factors in three chapters. In Chapter 2, I review the principles of plant-pollinator co-evolution and interactions and discuss how these can be applied to establishing and maintaining pollinator habitat in managed landscapes, including agricultural field, urban areas, and solar energy installations. In Chapter 3, through field experiments I investigate the attractiveness of two genera of mint, Mentha and Pycnanthemum, and demonstrate that, despite differences in floral morphology, these different plant species and cultivars attract similar numbers of pollinators and support a diversity of pollinator taxa. I also demonstrate that these plant species have characteristics that allow them to provide late-season nutritional resources for pollinators in landscapes that are challenging to manage. Finally, in Chapter 4, I investigate in greenhouse experiments the impacts of soil nutrition on plant characteristics, including pollen size and production, and on bumble bee foraging preferences, using Brassica rapa as a model system. I demonstrate that while nitrogen deprivation decreases the production of pollen grains, plant genotype affects pollen size, and plant genotype was the only significant determinant in visitation variation. Overall, this thesis demonstrates the value of mints in attracting diverse pollinator taxa, provides insights into strategies for designing and managing plant communities to support pollinators.
Download or read book Attracting Native Pollinators written by The Xerces Society and published by Storey Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2011-02-28 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the recent decline of the European honey bee, it is more important than ever to encourage the activity of other native pollinators to keep your flowers beautiful and your grains and produce plentiful. In Attracting Native Pollinators, you’ll find ideas for building nesting structures and creating a welcoming habitat for an array of diverse pollinators that includes not only bees, but butterflies, moths, and more. Take action and protect North America’s food supply for the future, while at the same time enjoying a happily bustling landscape.
Download or read book Attracting Native Pollinators written by Matthew Shepherd and published by Storey Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Protect the Pollinators That Help Feed the World Bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies, and some beetles pollinate more than 70 percent of flowering plants, but North America's native pollinators face multiple threats to their health and habitat. The Xerces Society offers a complete action plan of protecting these industrious animals by providing flowering habitat and nesting sites. Providing Healthy Habitats for Pollinators: Supports bountiful farm and garden harvests Maintains healthy plant communities Provides food for other wildlife Beautifies your landscape with flower plants "Precise, elegant, and thoughtful, the recommendations offered by the Xerces Society will become essential to advancing a healthy and diverse food-production system." - Gary Paul Nabhan, "The Forgotten Pollinator"s and "Renewing America's Food Traditions" "Here is the most comprehensive treatment yet of native pollinators, detailing natural history, ecological importance, taxonomy, conservation, and restoration of native pollinator communities. Attracting Native Pollinators belongs on the bookshelf to everyone who values the future of the natural world." - Douglas W. Tallamy, author, "Bringing Nature Home"
Download or read book Assessing the Impact of Super Abundant Non native Honey Bees Apis Mellifera on Native Plants and Pollinators written by Dillon Joseph Travis and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nestled in the California Floristic Provence, a biodiversity hotspot, San Diego County is home well over 2,500 species of plants and at least 650 bee species, many of which are endemic to the region. Despite the great diversity of pollinators like bees, non-native honey bees (Apis mellifera) make up greater than 70% of all visits to native plants in habitat. Lacking a baseline of pollinators populations and plant reproduction before the arrival of honey bees in the 1800s, the impact of this super abundant non-native species is not well known. In this dissertation, I take an applied and exploratory perspective to study and better understand the effects of honey bees on native plants and pollinators. In the first chapter, I demonstrate that honey bee pollination of native plants leads to decreased fitness of both the parent and progeny generations of three common native plants. In the second chapter, I determine if geitonogamous visitation by honey bees is a conserved behavior throughout its global range by reviewing peer reviewed manuscripts containing relevant information. In the third chapter I quantified the mass of pollen removed by honey bees daily from multiple study sites and estimated the number of native bees of average size that could have been produced with this pollen, and the mass of native bees that could be produced by directly converting observed honey bee biomass into native bees. Finally, in the fourth chapter I set out to determine if honey bees negatively impact native pollinator populations by comparing native pollinator diversity and abundance both in the presence and absence of honey bees using Santa Cruz Island where honey bees have been eradicated, and the Santa Monica Mountains where honey bees persist. Altogether, this work reveals the stunning impact honey bees have on both native plants and pollinators in San Diego County and Southern California. I hope that this dissertation can be used to inform conservationists and policy makers about the impacts of honey bees on our native plants and pollinators so that they may be preserved for generations to come.
Download or read book Predicting Plant Attractiveness to Pollinators with Passive Crowdsourcing written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global concern regarding pollinator decline has intensified interest in enhancing pollinator resources in managed landscapes. These efforts frequently emphasize restoration or planting of flowering plants to provide pollen and nectar resources that are highly attractive to the desired pollinators. However, determining exactly which plant species should be used to enhance a landscape is difficult. Empirical screening of plants for such purposes is logistically daunting, but could be streamlined by crowdsourcing data to create lists of plants most probable to attract the desired pollinator taxa. People frequently photograph plants in bloom and the Internet has become a vast repository of such images. A proportion of these images also capture floral visitation by arthropods. Here, we test the hypothesis that the abundance of floral images containing identifiable pollinator and other beneficial insects is positively associated with the observed attractiveness of the same species in controlled field trials from previously published studies. We used Google Image searches to determine the correlation of pollinator visitation captured by photographs on the Internet relative to the attractiveness of the same species in common-garden field trials for 43 plant species. From the first 30 photographs, which successfully identified the plant, we recorded the number of Apis (managed honeybees), non-Apis (exclusively wild bees) and the number of bee-mimicking syrphid flies. We used these observations from search hits as well as bloom period (BP) as predictor variables in Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) for field-observed abundances of each of these groups. We found that non-Apis bees observed in controlled field trials were positively associated with observations of these taxa in Google Image searches (pseudo-R2 of 0.668). Syrphid fly observations in the field were also associated with the frequency they were observed in images, but this relationship was weak. Apis bee observations were not associated with Internet images, but were slightly associated with BP. Our results suggest that passively crowdsourced image data can potentially be a useful screening tool to identify candidate plants for pollinator habitat restoration efforts directed at wild bee conservation. Increasing our understanding of the attractiveness of a greater diversity of plants increases the potential for more rapid and efficient research in creating pollinator-supportive landscapes.
Download or read book Farming for Bees written by Mace Vaughan and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bee Conservation written by Lynn V. Dicks and published by Pelagic Publishing. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together scientific evidence and experience relevant to the practical conservation of wild bees. The authors worked with an international group of bee experts and conservationists to develop a global list of interventions that could benefit wild bees. They range from protecting natural habitat to controlling disease in commercial bumblebee colonies. For each intervention, the book summarises studies captured by the Conservation Evidence project, where that intervention has been tested and its effects on bees quantified. The result is a thorough guide to what is known, or not known, about the effectiveness of bee conservation actions throughout the world. Bee Conservation is the first in a series of synopses that will cover different species groups and habitats, gradually building into a comprehensive summary of evidence on the effects of conservation interventions for all biodiversity throughout the world. By making evidence accessible in this way, we hope to enable a change in the practice of conservation, so it can become more evidence-based. We also aim to highlight where there are gaps in knowledge. Evidence from all around the world is included. If there appears to be a bias towards evidence from northern European or North American temperate environments, this reflects a current bias in the published research that is available to us. Conservation interventions are grouped primarily according to the relevant direct threats, as defined in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Unified Classification of Direct Threats.
