AUBURN-Protecting Pollinators in Urban Areas is a four-part series providing information and recommendations for the protection of pollinating insects in urban landscapes throughout the Southeast. Animal pollinators can be birds or even bats, but the most abundant are insects
The Changing Urban Landscape
Urban landscapes are transforming traditionally rural areas in the southeastern states into suburban and urban centers. Significant changes to plant and animal communities are a consequence. Plant species diversity often increases in suburban areas versus rural or urban (city center) areas. On the contrary, animal species diversity is considerably less in suburban and urban areas relative to adjacent rural areas.
As urbanization continues to alter the landscape, changing habitats provide challenges for pollinators. It is more difficult for them to thrive in areas where fewer nest sites and host plants are available. Man-made structures and traffic make foraging riskier and more difficult. Knowing how to protect vital pollinators begins with understanding their ecosystem.
Why We Need Pollinators
In Alabama and most of the southeastern United States, spring is often marked by the pine pollen on your car, patio furniture, and house. Pine trees produce and unload so much pollen because they depend on the wind to do their pollinating. This is a big reason to be thankful for bees and other animals that do the pollinating for plants. It’s a much neater process!
This brings up the question: How do animal pollinators know to go to flowers for pollination? Most flowering plants have specific floral traits (color, smell, size, rewards) that attract certain pollinators. Some pollinators focus their attention on one plant species, a behavior known as floral constancy. Remaining true to the flowers they visit increases the chance for successful pollination. Animal pollinators and plants depend on each other for survival.
Diversity of Insect Pollinators
People tend to think of the European honey bee (Apis mellifera) when they hear the word pollination. But it is just one species among approximately 3,500 species of bees in North America. Moreover, the European honey bee is not native to North America. It was introduced by early settlers and is considered an agricultural commodity.
Along with bees, numerous insect species are common pollinators that visit flowers mainly for nectar. Each one serves a specific purpose:
- Moths are night active and pollinate flowers that are open. They work when most other insect pollinators are sleeping.
- Butterflies are not as efficient as bees at moving pollen, but they can visit long, deep flowers that may not provide accessible nectar for some bees.
- Beetles are mess and soil pollinators. They get inside flowers and move around, coating their whole bodies with pollen.
- Flies find their specialty in stinky flowers. No other pollinator wants to go to a flower that smells like rotting flesh.
- Ants on flowers are more likely stealing nectar or hunting insects than pollinating. An exception is the small stonecrop (Diamorpha smallii). It is a native plant to the southeastern United States that is ant pollinated.
- Wasps are often seen with bees at flowers. Because their bodies are not hairy, successful pollination is usually limited to specialized species such as fig wasps. Without these wasps, tropical fig trees grown as ornamentals would not produce fruit.
Media Release/Alabama Extension
