[Pollinator] Times Community: Pollinators in Peril

[Jennifer Tsang]

 <http://www.timescommunity.com> 



07/25/2007


Pollinators in Peril 


By: Marshall Jones , Special to the Rappahannock News 

 


Which came first - the flower or the pollinator? It's a question with no
easy answer, for they depend on each other for their existence. 

There are of course some major groups of plants which rely only on the wind
for pollination, such as grasses and many forest trees. But if a plant has a
colorful flower, you can bet that there's a winged visitor which appreciates
that blossom even more than we do, collecting sweet nectar and
simultaneously carrying pollen from bloom to bloom. 
Without the pollinator, there would be no seeds or fruit, and thus no future
generation of the plant - and ultimately no future generations of the
pollinator either. 
For many of our fruit trees and crop plants, honeybees - which were first
introduced to the New World by the Jamestown colonists - are by far the most
important pollinator. Unfortunately, as Jason Peck described in the May 30,
2007 edition of the Rappahannock News, honeybees are now in a troubling
decline, caused by the sudden and poorly understood disappearing act known
as "Colony Collapse Disorder". 


 

Native Pollinator Protection 

The fate of the honeybee has also brought attention to the importance of
taking care of our native pollinators, too. These include not only bees, but
also birds, bats and butterflies, some of which are threatened by
pesticides, disease or habitat fragmentation and loss. 
Recognizing the importance of all of these to the pollination of native and
crop plants, in 1999 the California-based Coevolution Institute joined with
the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to form the North American
Pollinator Protection Campaign. Today more than 90 organizations are part of
NAPPC and its efforts to publicize the importance of conserving pollinators
(www.nappc.org ).
On June 29, the U.S. Postal Service joined the pollinator campaign with
stunning blocks of four stamps arranged in two different patterns. Each
stamp features a different pollinator, including Morrison's bumble bee of
the Western states, the calliope hummingbird of Western high mountain
meadows, the lesser long-nosed bat of the Arizona desert and the Southern
dogface butterfly. 
Although none of the species shown in the stamps is regularly found in
Virginia, the dogface butterfly periodically wanders north from its usual
range in North Carolina and states farther South, to appear in almost any
part of the Commonwealth.

What We Can Do to Help 
Although our native Virginia bats are not significant pollinators, they have
other benefits - a single bat may consume up to 600 mosquitoes per hour. To
encourage bats, you could put a bat house in a tree. Bat houses are sold
with bird houses at many stores, and Bat Conservation International has
information about how to build one (www.batcon.org).
Hummingbird feeders probably need no elaboration here, but don't forget
Fuchsias in hanging baskets, which are hummingbird magnets, and most
importantly, the many beautiful landscape plants which provide hummingbird
habitat. Flowers most favored by hummingbirds typically are red, pink, or
orange and have long tubular flowers like Columbine, bee balm, trumpet vine,
and red buckeye. 
Bumblebees make small nests which generally do no damage, so the best way to
conserve these giant bees may be to avoid disturbing their nests or spraying
pesticides. 
Native mason bees, which can pollinate orchards as well as native plants,
will nest in wooden blocks with holes drilled into them. For details on how
to make a mason bee house, see the National Wildlife Federation's website
www.nwf.org/backyard/beehouse.cfm,or you can purchase a ready-made bee house
from a number of online suppliers.
Finally, anyone with space for flowers - from pots on their deck to acres of
meadow - will attract a host of native butterflies. From there, it's easy to
take the next step and learn how to identify common species. The University
of Virginia's Blandy Experimental Farm in Clarke County has produced an
excellent online butterfly guide, with color photos and habitat
descriptions, available at
http://www.virginia.edu/blandy/ClarkeCountyLandUseSurvey/butterflyguide.pdf.

Butterfly Day in Rappahannock
Last Sunday was at the annual Butterfly Day sponsored by the Rappahannock
League for Environmental Protection's Biodiversity Task Force. Adults and
children joined Mary Willeford Bair of the National Park Service for a talk
about butterflies, followed by a walk around the naturalized habitats on the
property of Bruce and Susan Jones. If you missed the event, you can obtain
information by contacting the Biodiversity Task Force's Lead Coordinator Pam
Owen at FlyByNight books in Flint Hill (540-675-9989), send an email to
Biodiversity at RLEP.org, or go to www.RLEP.org . 


 


CTimes Community Newspapers 2007 

 

 

Jennifer Tsang
Coevolution Institute <http://coevolution.org> 
423 Washington St. 5th Fl.
San Francisco, CA 94111-2339
T: 415.362.1137

F: 415.362.3070

www.nappc.org

www.pollinator.org

 

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