Diurnal and nocturnal pollinators of urban gardens |
More information can be found soon: Wonderlin, N. E. (In Press) Distinct diurnal and nocturnal flower visitor communities provide pollination services in urban gardens, Ecological Entomology
|
The world of day-active pollination has been studied extensively - which makes sense, they are readily visible to us during the day! However, there are many flower visitors that do most of their work at night. I wanted to describe diurnal and nocturnal pollinator communities in urban gardens, which represent novel, human-influenced habitats with variable impacts on insect groups. To do this, I used security cameras to record 24-hour cycles of plant visitation on Common Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum L.) in a handful of urban community gardens. To measure pollination capacity, a pollinator exclusion experiment was done, also on Common Boneset. Using bridal mesh, flowers were only open to visitors during specified times of day. All treatment groups that were open to pollinators had higher reproductive output than plants that were covered for the duration of the experiment, which tells us that E. perfoliatum depends on pollinators for reproduction. Plants that were open to diurnal pollinators produced a higher number of seeds, but plants open to nocturnal pollinators produced larger seeds, indicating a potential reproductive trade-off between groups.
|
What plants do moths interact with? |
There are more than 11,000 species of moth in North America, and most are nectarivorous (they feed on floral nectar for energy). Given that there are so many moths interacting with flowers, they have the power to greatly influence the plants in their environments. I am interested in better understanding who the key players are in these interactions, and exploring the way these interaction networks are structured. Are moths generalist plant visitors? Are they pollinators? What are their floral preferences?
More information can be found at: Wonderlin, N. E., Rumfelt, K., White, P. J. T. Associations between nocturnal moths and flowers in urban gardens: evidence from pollen on moths. Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 73:173-176. |
|
How do we study moth communities? |
|
Doing research at night poses many interesting challenges. For example, when you can't just walk into a site and start collecting insects, how do you gather data? A few ways I have addressed this issue in my research are:
1. Mercury Vapor Light Traps 2. Cooling Traps 3. Sheet or Hand Trapping All of these methods capitalize on one key fact - moths love light. You may have realized this at some point when you saw a flurry of moths around streetlights at night. Some wavelengths are more attractive than others, and that is how we decide what types of lights to use in our traps. Read more about one of our novel moth collection designs at:
Wonderlin, N. E., Ross, L. M., White, P. J. T. 2017. Construction and performance of a novel capture-mark-release trap. Great Lakes Entomologist 50:25-30. |