Author Archives: Gail Langellotto

About Gail Langellotto

I'm a Professor in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University (OSU), where I lead the OSU Garden Ecology Lab.

Announcing the Publication of Seven New Garden Ecology Lab Briefs

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The Garden Ecology Lab engages in research that aims to inform sustainable gardening practices in the Pacific Northwest. Some of our research is conducted as controlled field trials at Oregon State University-owned research sites. Other research projects occur in community and private gardens, across the state. We also use surveys to better understand how gardeners perceive different aspects of a garden ecosystem.

The questions we seek to answer with our research are guided by interests and expertise of Garden Ecology Lab members, but are also informed by the questions that gardeners ask us, the online chatter we see in online gardening groups, and the responses we receive on surveys. Our work thus occurs in close partnership with Oregon’s gardeners and gardening communities. Because of this, we are committed to sharing the results of our research with the general public, in a format that is engaging and useful to gardeners.

This is why we created the Garden Ecology Lab Briefs, or GEL Briefs. GEL Briefs are short, free-to-use 2-page documents that can be downloaded, printed, and used as handouts at a retail nursery, community garden fair, public talk or presentation, plant sale, or other event.

Each Brief includes a visually-engaging infographic, and text that provides a summary of our research, results, and how you can apply the research findings in your garden. The seven NEW briefs that we have just published are mostly drawn from our research on pollinators’ use of native plants and native cultivars.

We provide an overview of pollinator visitation (abundance) and pollinator richness (# of unique species) on native plants and their cultivars. Pollinator visitation and richness were generally depressed on native cultivars, compared to native plants. In only one instance (Douglas’ Aster ‘Sauvie Star’) were pollinators significantly more abundant and as species rich as the native counterpart.

The infographic from the Garden Ecology Lab Brief entitled ‘Pollinators on Native Cultivars versus Native Plants‘

You may notice that the ‘Sauvie Snow’ cultivar had as many pollinator species as the native (29 pollinator species, each) and significantly more pollinator visits than the native. The ‘Sauvie Star’ cultivar had almost as many pollinator species, and more (but not significantly different, statistically) pollinator visits than the native. We think that there are two possible explanations for these results. First, the ‘Sauvie Snow’ and ‘Sauvie Star’ cultivars represent naturally occurring, regional variants of the native. They thus represent forms of the plant that pollinators may encounter (albeit rarely) in nature. Second, the ‘Sauvie Star’ and ‘Sauvie Snow’ cultivars had as many flowers as the native, but since these plants were taller, the flowers were more spread out along a vertical axis. This may provide pollinators more space to forage, which could have reduced competition for floral resources.

The infographic from the Garden Ecology Lab Brief entitled ‘Layering Garden Plants for Pollinators‘

We also provide data that shows how the act of breeding a native plant, to create a native cultivar, can have unintended impacts on floral resources for pollinators. Drawing from our data for California Poppy and Farewell-to-Spring, we show that pollen lipid (fat) content, pollen protein content, can sometimes be increased or decreased in native cultivars, relative to the native plant. California poppy does not produce nectar, so we only provide nectar data for farewell-to-spring. Although nectar volume is unchanged between the native and its cultivars, nectar sugar content is decreased in the ‘Dwarf White’ native cultivar, relative to the native plant.


The infographic from the Garden Ecology Lab Brief entitled ‘Breeding Native Plants has Ecological Trade-Offs‘

We share data on what surveyed gardeners thought of the aesthetic appeal of native plants versus cultivars. Note that these survey results were heavily influenced by the fact that most of the respondents identified as native plant gardeners. But somewhat unexpectedly, since native plant breeding is often focused on improving aesthetic appeal, we found that gardeners almost always preferred the aesthetics of the native plant. Only yarrow ‘Salmon Beauty’ had a comparable aesthetic score to its native plant counterpart.

The infographic from the Garden Ecology Lab Brief entitled ‘Gardeners Do Not Prefer Native Cultivars‘

We also share data from some of the unexpected and unplanned aspects of this study. For example, we formalized our observations of gopher preferences for Camas bulb cultivars into a Garden Ecology Lab Brief. We also did more reading, and found out that Camas ‘Blue Heaven’ are likely avoided by bulb predators, because this cultivar contains Camassia cusickii, and this bulb is inedible, due to its bitter saponin chemicals.

The infographic from the Garden Ecology Lab Brief entitled ‘Protecting Bulbs from Gophers‘

Another unplanned aspect of the native plant and native cultivar study was how hard it was to find native plants and native cultivars that were representative of the native plants in our region. We decided to share our experience in a GEL Brief about how difficult it can be to determine native plant status. We also wrote two guides to help gardeners decipher plant labels and find and buy native plants.

The infographic from the Garden Ecology Lab Brief entitled Plant Parentage Complicates Native Status 

Finally, we created an infographic that communicates what gardeners think about native plant aesthetics, and how brief messages about the pollinators that are supported by an ‘ugly’ native plant can help improve a plant’s appeal. This brief highlights what our lab has long called the ‘ecological beauty’ of a plant. Beauty can indeed go beyond surface appearance, and can also include the beauty of the different pollinators that a plant brings to your garden.

The infographic from the Garden Ecology Lab Brief entitled Gardeners Value Ecological Beauty 

We hope that you find these Briefs interesting and useful. If you have a gardening event or other venue where they might be useful, we hope that you will consider printing them out for distribution. They are free to use and share. We also hope that you will check back to the resource page that our lab has set up, specifically to community our research findings with gardeners. We have two new briefs in preparation, based upon a new study of syrphid flies in garden spaces.

Finally, we would like to highlight and thank several people and organizations that have helped to make these briefs possible.

Garden Ecology Lab Graduates and New Lab Member: Anna Janowski

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This academic year saw the graduation and departure of many Garden Ecology Lab students.

Jen graduated with her Ph.D. in horticulture, with an entomology option. Lilly S. graduated with an Honors B.S. in Biology. Anna P. and Kailey both graduated with a double degree, with a B.S. in Crop and Soil Sciences and a B.S. in Sustainability. Leo graduates with a B.S. in Botany and plant pathology, and a GIS certificate. We didn’t manage to get a profile of Lilly, before graduation, but you can see these great photos of her in action in the Jazz Ensemble.

The students are off to new and fun adventures, post graduation. Jen continues to work with the Garden Ecology Lab on developing infographics for all of our research. You can find these infographics, called the ‘Garden Ecology Lab Briefs’ on our website. Jen is also working with the Master Mellitologist program. Lilly is looking to attend graduate school in Germany, and is particularly interested in the work of the Urban Productive Ecosystems Lab. Anna is returning to the lab, to begin her M.S. degree in the Fall. Leo is doing fieldwork with the Insitute for Applied Ecology. And Kailey is looking into graduate school options, including working with the Garden Ecology Lab.

three young women stand in their caps and gowns in front of the Oregon State University memorial union, on graduation day
From left to right, Lilly, Jen, and Anna on the steps of the Oregon State University Memorial Union, on graduation day, 2025.

As one crew graduates, we have hired several new students on for the summer months. In this post, we wanted to spotlight Anna Janowski, who has been working in our group for about half a year.

Meet Anna Janowski

a woman in a long sleeve shirt, pants, and hate takes a photo of a butterfly sitting on a path.

I’m Anna Janowski, a second-year undergraduate working in the Garden Ecology Lab. I’ve been fascinated by insects for most of my life; as a little kid, I was always getting up close and personal with the invertebrates that lived in my neighborhood. I would dig up earthworms from my family’s vegetable garden, give them names, and put them back with the hope that I’d see them again next year. I would get on my hands and knees in the dirt to search for ants, using my little plastic magnifying glass to get a closer look. I would pick up roly-poly caterpillars and hold them until they relaxed enough to uncurl and crawl around in my hand.

I may have graduated from toy magnifying glasses to dissection microscopes, but the curiosity and love of insects at the core of my explorations hasn’t changed. Given this background, perhaps it’s no surprise that I’ve become involved with the Garden Ecology Lab’s research on urban insect ecology, where more sophisticated scientific techniques are applied to answer essentially the same questions my preschool-aged self would have had: What insects are around us? Where do they live? Why are they here?

Currently, I’m pursuing a double degree with majors in zoology and creative writing as well as a minor in entomology. I’m hoping to complete an insect ecology-focused undergraduate honors thesis with the Garden Ecology Lab. I also want to study insect ecology in graduate school, and I’m exploring the possibility of combining my science and writing skill sets in a career in science communication. I’m particularly interested in the effects of climate change on beneficial insects and how insects may function as indicators of broader environmental issues.

Shortly after I started at OSU, I joined the Bug Club, hoping to meet other students who are as enthusiastic about entomology as I am. Now, I’m the outreach and education officer for the club, a position that has given me the opportunity to come up with creative ways to educate the public about entomology.

Outside of school and lab work, I spend most of my time playing trumpet for the Oregon State marching band, reading fantasy novels, and working on miscellaneous art projects.

Meet the Garden Ecology Lab’s New Ph.D. Student, Taylor Janecek

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It wasn’t until my first entomology class at Colorado State University as an undergraduate that I learned that working with insects was something one could pursue for their career. Though, like many other naturalists and entomologists, my passion started very early in life. The living, breathing, and thriving ecosystems that surround us or that we cultivate in our gardens strike us with awe and wonder, but the organisms that I found most interesting were the small arthropods and the plants associated with them. Even more specifically, I was drawn to pollinators and their behaviors within garden microcosms. I would spend many hours of my younger years observing and interacting with small ground nesting bees that dotted gravelly areas, and watching all kinds of species that visited the blooms around the neighborhood. Although pollinators are what I had always been striving to work with, my life led me in many different entomological directions.

A solitary bee sits on the leaf of a flowering currant
An adrenid mining bee sitting on a currant leaf at the Hesthvn Nature Center and Sanctuary. Photo Credit: Taylor Janecek.

After graduating from Colorado State University with a degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation (they did not offer entomology as a major at the time unfortunately), the very first opportunity I had was to work at an invertebrate zoo called the Butterfly Pavilion where I worked with so many different invertebrate species and also started beekeeping, which I kept doing for about 12 years. From there, my experiences included working with mosquitoes and predacious ground beetles at NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network), work with aquatic insects at the USGS National Water Quality Lab, and work with disease vectoring arthropods across the U.S. with the USDA National Wildlife Research Center. These experiences led me to apply for graduate school at Colorado State University, so that I could refine my entomological interests and expertise.

I started my Master’s degree in in 2021 in bio-agricultural sciences, specializing in entomology. I worked with a virus that was a relatively new pest in chile peppers in Southern Colorado, vectored by aphids. The goal of this research was to investigate methods to manage virus incidence in chile pepper systems using cultural control methods, such as fine-tuning planting dates or identifying and using resistant plant varieties. We found some very promising varieties that showed resistance through field and greenhouse experiments. An added benefit was that I was able to bring home hundreds of pounds of chile peppers! Throughout my Master’s I was also able to collaborate on quinoa research and hemp, graduating in 2023. I learned that I really love research and outreach, but pollinators were still at the front of my mind. If I were to continue in academia, it had to be studying and working directly with them.

Green lobed plants growing in the understory of a forest
Another photo from Hesthvn Nature Center and Sanctuary. I was lucky enough to see such a large proportion of Delphinium flowering. As I am not from this state, I am in a constant state of awe when I’m anywhere outdoors here. Photo Credit: Taylor Janecek.

That brings me to today. I started my doctoral studies in the Garden Ecology lab early this year under the advisement of Dr. Gail Langellotto. Gail and I share tremendous interest and passion for pollinator behavioral ecology and conservation. I am interested in exploring some Jen Haye’s preliminary findings, which suggest that we can select and plant floral resources in gardens in ways that alleviate competitive pressures from honey bees, to achieve a more sustainable coexistence with native, wild bees. Honey bees are here to stay, and they will almost always outcompete native bees in some way. I am interested in understanding how we can design and manage our gardens to provide a more harmonious habitat for them both. If this resonates with you, please consider signing up for my summer research project.

A flyer that says 'what do you plant for pollinators?'
A flier describing a study of pollinator plants in Oregon gardens.
A flyer with a QR code to join the study

This summer, I am seeking 30 gardens (10, each, in Corvallis, Eugene, and Portland metro regions) that have pollinator gardens. If you are interested in allowing our research team to visit your garden for this study, please take this short survey by June 6, 2025. If your garden is selected for study, we will visit in late June or mid-July to document the plants in  your pollinator garden. We will use this data to:

We will be documenting plants in these pollinator gardens so that we can:

  • ***Document the most common pollinator plants being cultivated by Oregon gardeners,
  • ***Relate garden plantings to the types of pollinators supported (e.g. bees, flies, and/or butterflies),
  • ***Determine the seasonal extent of pollinator garden resources (summer only, or also covering early spring and summer, and
  • ***Estimate the standing crop of resources available to pollinators within these pollinator gardens.

We will also be looking for plants in or around gardens that are considered magnet plants for honey bees and other the yellow-faced bumble bee. Magnet plants include those that provide large quantities of nectar, are highly attractive to the worker caste of eusocial bees, and that can draw abundant, eusocial bees away from the plants that native bees favor. I will study magnet plants in a manipulative field experiment, where I will document pollinator behavior on garden plantings, with and without magnet plants.

Garden Ecology Lab April 2025 Fundraising Appeal

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I am happy to share that our lab has published a new Garden Ecology Brief about pollinators on native plants versus native cultivars, excerpted, below.

You can access the full brief, as well as additional science-based resources for gardeners, by visiting the ‘For Gardeners‘ page on our website. We will be adding new briefs in the coming weeks, including one on gophers’ preferences for different Camas bulb varieties and another on parentage of native plant cultivars.

I also wanted to share our annual fundraising appeal. I know that there are many worthy organizations for philanthropy, and hope that you might consider a small gift to the Garden Ecology Lab. All funds go to supporting the graduate and undergraduate students in the lab, including their salaries, supplies, and contracted services (e.g. bee identification, pollen analysis) needed for their projects.

For those who prefer, I have posted a screen-reader ready version of the newsletter below the newsletter photos.

Garden Ecology Lab, April 2025 Fundraising Appeal

Spring. A time of growth and renewal, with plants emerging and birds and bees searching for food to feed hatchlings.

We offer an update on research at the OSU Garden Ecology lab and invite you to invest in science with a to support our work. Please follow giving instructions in the last paragraph.

Since 2016, the Garden Ecology Lab has been studying the plants, insects, and management practices that affect a garden’s ability to promote environmental and human health. We offer a QR code at the bottom of this message to access gardening tips. Please take a look and share with friends.

An update on our projects

Initial Stages: What is the prevalence of microplastics pollution in garden soils, and what impact do they have on the soil characteristics?

Plastics are ubiquitous in horticulture and can be found in nursery pots, seed-starting trays, slow-release fertilizers, row covers, shade cloth, irrigation tape, drip lines, potting soil bags, and more.

Microplastics are difficult to study in terrestrial systems. They share similar electrostatic and physical properties with soil organic matter, making them challenging to isolate from soils rich in organic matter, such as garden soils.

We are up to the challenge. Leveraging the unique resources and expertise at OSU’s PNW MicroPlastics Consortium and Pedology Lab, we will prevail over these technical challenges.

We will study the magnitude and types of microplastics in garden soils, and their potential influence on soil biology, chemistry, and structure.

In Process: Identifying the plants, garden layouts, and landscapes that bring beneficial hoverflies into the garden.

Hoverflies deliver three types of ecosystem services: pollination, pest control, and decomposition.

In 2024, we collected 22 species of hoverfly from 30 Portland- and Corvallis-area gardens. We found that, unlike bees, hoverflies are active in gardens on overcast days and seem to seek out shade when at rest. We tracked the flowers visited by hoverflies, so that we can make recommendations to gardeners wanting to attract them. This upcoming summer, we will continue the research.

Nearing Completion: Attractiveness of native plants versus native cultivars to people and pollinators.

We found that native plants are generally more attractive to both people and to pollinators, compared to native cultivars. Unexpectedly, although ornamental plant breeding programs often target bloom duration and bloom size, we found that cultivars were not significantly different than their native counterparts. In some cases, boom duration and bloom size were actually reduced in the cultivars!

How to support the Garden Ecology Lab

Please visit our website for gardening tips and research updates. Please also support our work with a donation. If you prefer to give online Be sure to select “Oregon Garden Research Fund” in the box called “I want to give” If you prefer using a check, make it payable to the OSU Foundation, with “Oregon Garden Research Fund” in the memo line. Mail to Oregon State University Foundation, 4238 SW Research Way, Corvallis, OR 97333.

Thank you and wishing you a productive gardening season filled with joy and fulfillment!

Gail Langellotto, Director, OSU Garden Ecology Lab

Y. Sherry Sheng, ardent supporter of garden science

Garden Science: Reducing Ecological Traps in Gardens

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This post was originally written for the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon (HPSO) Quarterly magazine and was greatly improved by the HPSO editorial team.

Part of the joy of gardening is seeing the beautiful birds, butterflies, and other charismatic fauna that come to visit your space. With careful thought about the elements that draw them into your garden, you can make relatively minor adjustments that help promote their survival and conservation.

Many features of garden spaces are attractive to insects, birds, and other types of urban wildlife. For example, as the profusion of flowers increases in garden spaces, beneficial insect species also increase. Birdfeeders provide ample and easy-to-access forage for a variety of wildlife, including birds and squirrels. Water features such as ponds or fountains are exploited by honey bees and other garden wildlife, particularly on hot days.

For many animals, these features of gardens represent relatively novel cues that they use to assess the overall quality of foraging or nesting sites. Sometimes animals make bad decisions on novel cues encountered in human-dominated landscapes. Because of the way that light reflects off of and is polarized by shiny, dark objects, mayflies and dragonflies are more attracted to oil spills, asphalt roads, and dark green automobiles than to water.1 These insects often become trapped in oil puddles or stuck to the road, and any eggs laid on these surfaces will obviously not survive.

When organisms choose to nest, feed, or reproduce in a highly attractive but low-quality habitat, that habitat is known as an “ecological trap.” Two criteria determine an ecological trap: First, an individual prefers a poorer habitat over a better habitat; and second, the individual’s survival or reproduction is lower in the preferred habitat. Intuitively, it is easy to understand why gardeners who use pesticides on flowering plants that are highly attractive to insects are at high risk of creating ecological traps. But there are other, less obvious, ways that well-meaning gardeners may attract beneficial species into garden spaces only to ultimately harm the chances of survival and successful reproduction. In this article, I review what we do know about ecological traps in garden spaces, and share ideas for how to reduce or eliminate them.

Sometimes innocuous and every day actions conspire to create an ecological trap. For example, porch or other outdoor lights act as an ecological trap for many night-flying insects. These will continuously turn their bodies so sources of light shine on their backs. Scientists think this is an adaptation to help them maintain a constant flight path that is oriented to the horizon.2 However, the prevalence of artificial lights makes this a maladaptive behavior that causes them to fly erratically and also makes them more prone to being eaten by spiders that build webs near night lights.3 One relatively easy way to limit the negative effects of artificial light on night-flying moths and other insects is to switch to yellow-colored light bulbs. Flight behavior is suppressed in moths when exposed to yellow light, making them less likely to gather at your porch light than if it were a white bulb.4

Rooftop gardens are wonderful amenities for people, but on the fifth floor or higher, you may want to avoid plants that are highly attractive to pollinators. Photo source: Greg P Griffin on Flickr (CC BY 2.0). Image URL https://www.flickr.com/photos/17530093@N08/9316854571/

A second item to consider is where your flowering plants are located, particularly those that are highly attractive to insects. There is some evidence that pollinator gardens on rooftops or high balconies (fifth floor or higher) might function as ecological traps by drawing insects in with flowers to a largely isolated habitat subject to environmental conditions harsher than those at ground level.5 This suggests that gardeners should avoid planting highly attractive flowers on high balconies or rooftop gardens of mid- and high-rise buildings. Recent evidence also suggests that high floral abundance adjacent to streets with heavy traffic increases mortality of butterflies and dragonflies.6 This study was conducted near high-speed freeways but nonetheless provides a cautionary note to gardeners with landscaped areas adjacent to heavy traffic.

Roadside flower gardens are beautiful, but can pose a hazard to butterflies and dragonflies. Source: Jonathan Cutrer on Flickr (CC BY-2.0). Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/joncutrer/40632659923

Most research on ecological traps in urban spaces has focused on birds7 and has found that the propensity of a garden to act as an ecological trap is variable across different contexts. For example, gardeners who live adjacent to woodland habitat have greater on-site bird mortality due to domestic cats.8 This suggests that if you live near forest land or another wooded site, you may want to think twice before putting out bird feeders. Even if you don’t have an outdoor cat, they’re such ubiquitous characters in urban areas that drawing birds in with a bird feeder may be doing more harm than good. Similarly, bird feeders concentrate foraging birds at a specific site, which also attracts predators looking for prey. Although squirrels are the most common non-target animal seen at bird feeders, carnivorous foxes, skunks, racoons, and coyotes increase locally when bird feeders are present.9 This is why it is important to place feeders in a spot that provides birds with easy retreat to a nearby tree or tall shrub, where they can escape potential predators.

Careful consideration of where you place your bird feeder can help protect avifauna, such as this yellow rumped warbler. Photo source: ajdemma on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0). URL https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajdemma/12198584056/in/dateposted/

By thinking carefully about the cues in your garden that attract birds, butterflies, and other welcome fauna, you can avoid dangers to them, encourage their survival, and add to the joy your garden brings you.

Gail Langellotto is a professor of horticulture at Oregon State University and Principal Investigator of the Oregon State University Garden Ecology Lab. She holds a B.S. in biology and an M.S. and Ph.D. in entomology, all from the University of Maryland. She is a regular contributor to the HPSO Quarterly.

References

1Horváth et al. 2009. Polarized light pollution: a new kind of ecological photopollution. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment,7: 317–25.

2Fabian et al. 2024. Why flying insects gather at artificial light. Nature Communications, 15(689): 15pp.

3McMunn et al. 2019. Artificial light increases local predator abundance, predation rates, and herbivory. Environmental Entomology, 48: 1331-1339.

4Shimoda, M., & Honda, K.-I. 2013. Insect reactions to light and its applications to pest management. Applied Entomology and Zoology, 48: 413–421.

5MacIvor JS. 2016. Building height matters: Nesting activity of bees and wasps on vegetated roofs. Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution, 62: 88–96.

6Keilsohn et al. 2018. Roadside habitat impacts insect traffic mortality. Journal of Insect Conservation, 22: 183-188.

7Zuñiga-Palacios et al. 2021. What do we know (and need to know) about the role of urban habitats as ecological traps? Systemic review and meta-analysis. Science of the Total Environment,780: 146559.

8Shipley et al. 2013. Residential edges as ecological traps: postfledging survival of a ground-nesting passerine in a forested urban park. Auk, 130: 501-511.

9Reed and Bonter. 2018. Supplementing non-target taxa: bird feeding alters the local distribution of mammals. Ecological Applications, 28:761-770.

An Update on Native Plant Studies from The Garden Ecology Lab at Oregon State University

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A version of this article was originally written for the ‘Growing Knowledge‘ section of Digger Magazine, published by the Oregon Association of Nurseries.

The Garden Ecology Lab was founded in 2017 to advance an understanding of how to plan, plant, and manage garden systems to promote environmental and human health. It is one of two labs in the United States, and the only one in the Western US, to specifically focus on studies of garden ecology.

In this article, I provide an update on our native plant studies, with a focus on results that may be of particular interest to nursery owners. Brief summaries of many of our lab’s studies can be found on the ‘For Gardeners’ page of our lab website. Some nurseries have printed out copies of these lab briefs, so that their customers can see the ecological benefits of various plants. More briefs are planned for this year. Periodically visit our website for updates.

Native Plants in Garden Retail Centers

Interest in native plant gardening has drastically grown in recent years, but many native plants remain difficult to find for purchase. In the April 2019 issue of The Digger, Dr. Aaron Anderson highlighted three barriers that gardeners face, when trying to purchase native plants: 1) lack of advertising by native plant nurseries or gardeners’ lack of familiarity with these nurseries, 2) variation in nursery stock among native plant growers, and 3) geographic distance that gardeners might have to travel to find the plants they are looking for. These specific barriers were ones that Aaron faced when he was setting up his field study of insect communities associated with 23 species of Pacific Northwest Native plants.

Aaron used the Oregon Flora’s gardening resource page to locate where he could buy his study plants. He ultimately ended up purchasing plants from two retail nurseries (one in Corvallis and the other in Forest Grove) and two pop up native plant sales (one in Corvallis and one in Portland). He also worked with two wholesale nurseries that were generous enough to sell or donate study plants or seed in the small quantities he was seeking (one in Salem and one in Silverton). Because he has been asked this question, often, Aaron also wrote a blog post on ‘Where to Buy Native Plants in Oregon‘.

After a three-year field study, Aaron was able to identify 10 native plants which support a diversity of bee species. We developed an infographic to share this information with gardeners, and include lavender in the image, since many gardeners perceive lavender to be a pollinator-friendly plant (Bennett 2019).

Image 1: The number of estimated bee species associated with PNW native plants is shown in a yellow circle, above each bar. Lavender is shown as a comparison, since it is recognized as a pollinator-friendly plant by many gardeners.

Today, Oregon Flora’s garden resource page lists 10 nurseries where gardeners can find and purchase native plants (Oregon Flora 2025). I used their plant-finding tool, to see whether I could find the 10 native plants that we recommend to gardeners. None of the nurseries were listed as carrying all of these recommended plants: two nurseries were listed as carrying 6 species, three nurseries carried 5, two nurseries carried 4, and three nurseries carried 2. All of the 10 nurseries were listed as carrying Oregon sunshine (Eriophyllum lanatum). None were listed as carrying Farewell-to-spring (Clarkia amoena), varileaf phacelia (Phacelia heterophylla), or common madia (Madia elegans).

Farewell-to-Spring, a promising native nursery plant

The absence of farewell-to-spring from nursery shelves is particularly disappointing, because it has become a favorite in our lab group. Its native range spans the Bay Area of California, north through Oregon and Washington and into British Columbia. In Oregon, it grows west of the Cascades to the coast and is found in a variety of habitats including coastal prairie, grasslands and forested areas. It is an easy-to-grow annual plant with erect stems (5.4” maximum height), thin, green leaves and bright pink flowers. In our study plots, first bloom occurred anywhere between early June and early July and lasting through early August through late October, depending upon seasonal weather patterns and supplemental irrigation.

Farewell-to-spring attracts a diversity of beneficial insects. Aaron collected 14 bee species, 15 predatory insect taxa, and 12 parasitoid taxa from this wildflower (Anderson 2022, Anderson et al. 2022) documenting its ecological value for attracting pollinators, as well as natural enemies that promote the biological control of insect pests. In a separate, but related field study, Jen Hayes looked at the pollinator assemblages on eight species of wild-type native plants and 1-3 of their cultivars. Jen provided an overview of this study in the October 2020 issue of The Digger (Hayes and Langellotto 2020), and the full report of this study was recently published (Hayes et al. 2025) for folks wanting more detailed information.

Farewell-to-spring was one of the native plants in her field study of pollinators on native plants and native cultivars. The cultivars she used were ‘Aurora’ (dark pink blossoms with a cream center), ‘Dwarf White’ (white blossoms), and ‘Scarlet’ (red blossoms with a light pink center). She documented 32 total pollinator species from the wild-type plant (with an estimated 104 total pollinator species), 17 pollinators on ‘Aurora’ (28 species estimated), 23 pollinators on ‘Dwarf White’ (24 species estimated), and 9 pollinators on ‘Scarlet’ (13 species estimated). Furthermore, she found that specialist bees, which are picky about where they collect pollen, were either exclusively found on wild-type native plants (two species, Megachile gravita and Melissodes microstictus), or were found in higher abundance on wild-type plants compared to cultivars (two species, Melissodes lupinus and Melissodes clarkiae). Because specialist bees have relatively narrow diet preferences, including their preferred forage plants is an easy way to attract these unique bees into a garden, and to locally increase pollinator biodiversity.

In addition to the importance of wild-type Farewell-to-spring as a forage plant, Jen worked with Mallory Mead (a former undergraduate student in our lab) to document its importance for bee nest material. Many leafcutter bee species use leaves, mud, resin, sticks, pebbles, or petals when they build their nests. Jen documented two species of petal-cutting bees in her study plot, each of which had a significant association with Farewell-to-spring and its cultivars. Megachile montivaga had significant associations with the wild type native and ‘Dwarf White’. Megachile brevis was significantly associated with the wild type native, ‘Dwarf White’, and ‘Aurora’.

Image 2. A and B: Leafcutter bees cut discs from petals of a cultivar. C: A leafcutter bee carries a petal disc to its nest. D: A leafcutter bee nest in a sunflower stalk. Credits: Svea Bruslind (A), Devon Johnson (B), Mallory Mead (C), Heidi Nordijk (D), © Oregon State University

Although Jen found evidence that the leafcutting bees were significantly associated with two of the three cultivars she included in her study, Mallory documented a very strong preference for the wild-type native over the cultivars, when she documented foraging for nesting material. Because leafcutting bees leave a characteristic crescent cut in petals, Mallory could document foraging for nesting material by counting the number of petal cuts from each plant. Wild type native plants had 3-4X as many petal cuts than cultivars. Even when we controlled for bloom count per plant, the wild type native was significantly preferred over the cultivars.

Image 3: Number of petal cuts by bees on wild-type Farewell-to-spring, and 3 cultivars.

Native Cultivars Are Often Easier to Find and Buy

Given the high abundance and diversity of beneficial insects associated with Farewell-to-spring, as well as its unique association with specialist foragers and petal-cutting bees, we enthusiastically recommend this plant to ecologically-minded gardeners. However, the average gardener shopping for this species is more likely to encounter cultivars than wild-type plants. This is partly because the plethora of Farewell-to-spring cultivars are on the market. In addition to the three included in Jen’s study, gardeners can find ‘Double Azalea’ (pink, purple, red, white flowers), ‘Lilac’ (pink petals with dark red center spots), ‘Pink to Red’ (red petals with light pink edges), ‘White’ (white flowers), ‘Pink’ (light pink flowers with no other markings); and ‘Sugarplum’ (semi-double flowers, light pink with rose-colored center markings, dwarf, somewhat bushy).

As noted earlier, native plants can be difficult to source in the retail marketplace. Offerings may not reflect the regional species pool of plants (Zinnen and Matthews 2022), and in some areas, 77% of the native plants on market shelves are actually hybrids or cultivars (Coombs et al. 2020). However, multiple studies have found that gardeners are willing to pay higher prices for native plants and locally sourced plant materials.

Somewhat unexpectedly, in a recent survey of 719 gardeners (Hayes et al. in preparation), 81% report that they buy their native plants at pop-up plant sales hosted by Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Master Gardener groups, or other non-profits. A comparable percentage of gardeners (78%) said that they buy their native plants at retail plant nurseries. However, given the transient nature of pop-up plant sales, it was surprising to us that they were as or more popular than brick-and-mortar stores for native plant purchases. I think this speaks to the difficulty many gardeners have finding the plants they are seeking, and how non-profit plant sales are filling a market void. It also points to a market opportunity for the nursery industry, in general.

References:

Anderson, A. 2019. Native plant production and marketing. The Digger, April Issue, pp 33-36.

Anderson, A. (2022). Evaluating the Attractiveness of Pacific Northwest Native Plants to Insects and Gardeners [Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of Ph.D.] Oregon State University.

Anderson, A. G., Costner, L., Best, L., & Langellotto, G. A. (2022). The bee fauna associated with Pacific Northwest (USA) native plants for gardens. Conservation Science and Practice, 4(10), e12801.

Bennett L. 2019. Examining the gap between interest and understanding of provisioning for bees: A capstone project to support urban bee conservation [Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of M.N.R.]. Oregon State University.

Coombs, G., Gilchrist, D., & Watson, P. (2020). An assessment of the native and invasive horticultural plants sold in the mid-Atlantic region. Native Plants Journal, 21(1), 74-82.

Hayes, J., Langellotto, G. 2020. Pollinator plant trials: researchers test the value of Willamette Valley natives and nativars. The Digger, October Issue, pp 33-37.

Hayes JJ-M, Bell NCS, Best LR, et al. 2025. Pacific Northwest native plants and native cultivars Part I: Pollinator visitation. Environ. Entomol. https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvae126.

Oregon Flora. 2025. Gardening with natives. https://oregonflora.org/garden/index.php, accessed January 29, 2025.

Zinnen, J., Matthews, J. W. 2022. Native species richness of commercial plant vendors in the Midwestern United States. Native Plants Journal, 23 (1) 4-15.

The Ethics, Politics, and Science of Lethal Insect Sampling

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A version of this blog post was written for the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon (HPSO) Quarterly Magazine, and was greatly improved by comments and feedback from the HPSO team of editors.

I had been to my mom’s hometown of Bagamanoc many times, but never before as a budding entomologist. In 1993, I packed my bags with the many tools used to collect and curate insects: glassine envelopes to store and sort butterflies, insect pins and boxes, a pinning block, and nets. Once on the ground in this rural region of the tropics, I set out to catch and kill new specimens for my personal insect collection. My prized find was a large birdwing butterfly, with black and red markings and wingspan of more than 6 inches: Atrophaneura semperi. I nearly vibrated with excitement as I caught her in my net. I carefully pulled her out and held her between my thumb and forefinger, so that I could pinch her thorax and break her flight muscles; a trick that was passed down to me by more experienced entomologists. This would ensure that she could no longer move, an activity that might scrape off scales or tear her wings. Pristine specimens are the standard for insect collections.

A large, red and black Philippine Batwing Butterfly. You can see a hand holding the butterfly's wings.
Philippine Batwing Butterfly. Photo from iNaturalist. © LARKSPUR ALFORQUE, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)

By the time I boarded a plane to return home, my prized find had been decimated. Ants had found her, and eaten her abdomen. I was crestfallen and ashamed that I had killed her. Since that time, I largely stopped collecting insects for my personal collection. I limit my collection to two taxa (longhorned beetles and metallic wood boring beetles), to keep from killing and pinning every insect that I see. But I have been involved in the lethal collection of many insect specimens for my work, and it is not without the occasional pangs of guilt.

A recent news story profiled Master Gardener volunteers who had collected 25,000 bees in Pennsylvania to further scientific understanding of wild bee abundance and diversity in the state.1 As the story was shared on social media, the comments and concerns related to lethal sampling accumulated: why was it necessary to kill the bees we are supposed to be helping?

In this article, I briefly examine the science, politics, and ethics of lethal sampling.

The Science

I know of only one study that has directly examined the impact of repeated, lethal sampling on insect communities.2 In this study, the authors sampled wild bees every two weeks throughout a season, or once per season. They found no effect of repeated sampling on any of the response variables they measured, including bee abundance, species richness, or community composition. They suggest that density-dependent competitive release may explain their results: decreased survivorship by some is compensated by increased fecundity from others. In essence, as you remove bees from the community, it reduces the intensity of competition and allows surviving bees to produce more offspring than they would have been able to if they had to compete with other bees for resources.

Lethal sampling has long been the rule in studies of insect biodiversity. In homage to the “lock and key hypothesis,” which suggests that genital morphology acts as a reproductive barrier that ultimately defines a species, identifying an insect to species may mean dissecting out genitalia for microscopic examination. In fact, there is a piece of equipment that some entomologists use, that is designed to inflate and harden insect genitalia, called a phalloblaster or vesica everter. This penis pump for insects cost $2,727 in 1997.

A shift away from lethal sampling has been happening for quite some time, particularly for butterflies and other large insects that can be identified by sight. On iNaturalist, many insects are identified to species by combining advances in machine learning and computer vision with crowd-sourced verifications from the iNaturalist community. The platform has led to the discovery and rediscovery of multiple insect species.3, 4

A few of the 2,691 specimens collected for a recent study of garden bee biodiversity. Photo credit: Gail Langellotto.

The Politics

Insects are generally exempt from regulatory oversight. But recent stories of insect declines and the emergence and growth of the insect farming industry has led at least one law school to teach a course on insect law. Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) govern the ethical care of animals used in research studies, but exempts invertebrates from oversight, except for cephalopods (octopus, squid and cuttlefish).

Few laws govern the collection of insect specimens. However, in the state of Washington, insects are classified as wildlife. Permits are required to collect insects for scientific study. This has complicated the launch of the Washington Bee Atlas, run by the Washington Department of Agriculture, which must secure permits from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for every bee collected.

The Ethics

The cephalopod exemption to IACUC oversight is notable, and is based on the recognition that cephalopods are sentient, self-aware, and capable of feeling or fearing pain. Insects don’t have a brain, per se. Instead, they have three clusters of nerve fibers, which form the supraesophageal ganglion. This fact has sometimes been used to argue that insects can’t feel pain, but reviews of recent studies suggest that there is evidence that some insect adults may feel pain,5 and that some may feel emotional states such as stress.6

Another high-profile study found evidence that bumblebees play.7 Play is classified as an activity that does not result in an obvious reward or adaptive outcome, among other criteria. In this study, researchers documented bumblebees interacting with balls in ways that satisfy the criteria for play. The bees received no reward for this behavior. As in many other animals, younger bees played more often than older bees. If insects are sentient, the field of entomology would undergo a revolution of practice.

Conclusion

Insects are so diverse. Many have yet to be discovered and described, and many others look remarkably similar. The only way to identify most insects to species is to have a physical specimen in hand that you can manipulate and examine under a microscope. And it’s notable that a landmark study of insect declines over 27 years used non-selective Malaise traps to enable the capture and counting of what must be tens of thousands of insects.8 It is extremely difficult to study many questions of insect ecology without lethal sampling.

But scientists are increasingly using and improving nonlethal methods in entomology,9 including the use of DNA barcoding, catch and release, and camera traps. Because the study of insects has largely been exempt from regulatory oversight, most entomologists have yet to reflect on the moral considerations of catching and killing insects. However, as we learn more about insect cognition, the time may be coming to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of lethal collection methods and to invest in technologies that advance the use of non-lethal options.

Aa solar-powered camera trap, to study insect visits to an artificial flower platform. On a single pole is mounted (from top to bottom) a solar panel, camera in protective white housing, and yellow flower platform.
An example of a solar-powered and open sourced camera trap, to study insect visits to an artificial flower platform. Photo by Maximilian Sittinger. (CC-BY-SA-4.0).

1Stimpston, Ashley. 2024. Twenty master gardeners have collected 25,000 bees. Here’s why. The Washington Post (October 24, 2024).

2Gezon, Zachariah J. et al. 2015. The effect of repeated, lethal sampling on wild bee abundance and diversity. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 6(9): 1044-1054.

3Tugwell, James, Masashi and Gaston, Kevin J. 2024. Sixteen insect species photographed for the first time by citizen scientist. ABC News, Australia (October 19, 2024).

4Mesaglio, Thomas. 2021. First known photographs of living specimens: the power of iNaturalist for recording rare tropical butterflies. Journal of Insect Conservation, 25: 905-911.

5Gibbons, M. et al. 2022. Can insects feel pain? A review of the neural and behavioral evidence. Advances in Insect Physiology, 63: 155-229.

6Lambert, H. et al. 2021. Wouldn’t hurt a fly? A review of insect cognition and sentience in relation to their use as food and feed. Applied Animal Behavior Science, 243: 105432.

7Galpayage Dona, Hiruni Samadi et al. 2022. Do bumblebees play? Animal Behavior, 194: 239-251.

8Hallman, Caspar A. et al. 2017. More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas. PLOS One, 12(10): e0185809.

9Lovei, Gabor L. and Ferrante, Marco. 2024. The use and prospects of nonlethal methods in entomology. Annual Review of Entomology, 69: 183-198.

Gardens as an Antidote to “Extinction of Experience”

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This article was written for the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon Quarterly (HPSO) Magazine and was greatly improved by the efforts of the HPSO editorial team.

Robert Michael Pyle first used the term “extinction of experience” over 30 years ago in his memoir, which centers on the power of human-nature interactions. Extinction of experience refers to humankind’s increasing alienation from the natural world and the consequent impacts that include increasing disaffection towards the natural world. As Pyle so eloquently phrased it, “What is the extinction of a condor to a child who has never seen a wren?” 1

Children spend less time in nature than the previous generations and this gap has only widened over time.2 Our loss of connection with nature is due in part to lack of opportunity in an increasingly urbanized world. But lack of opportunity grows a loss of emotional affinity to the natural world, thus creating a positive feedback cycle that further distances younger and future generations from nature.3  I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about this concerning trend and how I have seen it manifested in myself, and in younger generations.

I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore City, Maryland, where I relished opportunities to catch lightning bugs, pick mulberries, and crawl through the culverts of channelized streams. These experiences constitute some of my favorite childhood memories. Yet I remember being confused when I learned about deforestation in school, because I could see trees on every street. I had no frame of reference for how vast and diverse nature could be. It wasn’t until I took an undergraduate student position in an ecology lab that I started to understand how important the natural world was to humanity—and to my own existence. I worked in a peri-urban wildlife refuge, where I saw my first deer, hunted for spiders at night, and learned the names of an array of plants, birds, and invertebrates. I describe this time of my life, at the age of 21, as one where I felt like a scrim had been lifted from my eyes, and I saw the world in a whole new light.

My core experiences with nature occurred between 1976 and 1993. But today’s world is different from when I came of age. Decades before we were introduced to virtual reality and the metaverse, two celebrated nature writers warned that “children’s very ability to perceive the environment may be diminished by the replacement of multisensory experiences in richly textured landscapes . . . .“4 Today, humanity lives in a world where the metaverse and social media platforms play an increasingly important role in social construction of reality, including how nature is experienced and perceived.5 In fact, as early as 13 years ago, 7-11 year olds, from both rural and urban settings, were found to be more apt to correctly identify and have positive feelings for virtual animals, compared to local animal species.6

More recent research has found that gardens can counteract extinction of experience. This is somewhat surprising, since gardens themselves are not natural areas; garden floras are diverse mixtures of both planted and volunteer plants and tend to be dominated by non-native and cultivated species.7 Nonetheless, gardens were ranked in the top five most frequented natural areas in a survey of 4,600 French adults.8 Gardens provide opportunities to notice and experience elements of the natural world in an accessible and relatively safe setting. And multiple studies (including those from the Oregon State University Garden Ecology Lab) have shown that, as people become more familiar with the plants, insects,9 and birds10 in a garden, they grow more positive feelings towards the natural world. This cycle of familiarity and increased emotional attachment to nature thus creates a positive feedback loop that disrupts and counteracts extinction of experience.10

There are two things you can do to create a positive feedback loop of familiarity and increased attachment to the natural world in a garden. First, you need to create a space that promotes biodiversity. If you have an affinity for neat and tidy gardens, challenge yourself to create at least one section of the garden that has a more natural look. If your garden is dominated by non-native and cultivated plants, look for opportunities to add a few native plant species. Don’t release beneficial insects into your garden. Instead, try to attract them with proper plant selection and by reducing or eliminating pesticide use. Second, practice noticing and identifying the volunteer plants, resident insects, and visiting birds in your garden.

If you are online, you may want to try using iNaturalist, which is a social media platform that uses artificial intelligence to help identify organisms. However, the artificial intelligence built into iNaturalist depends upon the community of naturalists that use the platform. The community aspect of iNaturalist allows nature lovers to connect with and learn from others. It is not unusual for a nationally or internationally renowned taxon expert to provide species-level determinations for bees, or beetles, or other syrphid flies on this platform. I use iNaturalist often and have expanded my own understanding of local biodiversity as a direct result of my engagement with the site.

Noticing and identifying nature in your garden are the very first steps to growing an appreciation for local biodiversity. Once you are able to identify a new garden organism, further challenge yourself to learn more about its basic biology and ecology. There are so many surprising ways that organisms make their way in this world, including cooperation and altruism to social parasitism and deception. Nature never ceases to amaze me.

This column is most likely to be read by gardeners, who already have a level of appreciation and affinity for plants and greenspaces. What about others, including those most fascinated with the digital and virtual worlds? With my students and my own kids, I try to connect elements from popular movies and video games with analogs in the natural world. The creature from the Predator movies has a face with insectoid-like mandibles that extend like a dragonfly naiad. The fictional Sarlacc pits from Return of the Jedi remind me of how antlion larvae hunt. And when you’re really struggling to catch the attention of someone seemingly bored with the natural world, you can always draw from British biologist Olivia Judson’s excellent and hilarious book,11 Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation, which was first recommended to me by a Lane County gardener. For readers of this book, there will be no denying that the natural world is often stranger than fiction.

A few of the 213 garden species observed during a 2021 one-day BioBlitz of Oregon Gardens. There is a diversity of nature in every garden, particularly if you can pull back on pesticides and other design and management practices that exclude diverse species.

References

  • 1Pyle, Robert M., The Thunder Tree: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
  • 2Clements, Rhonda, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 5(1): 68-80, 2004.
  • 3Soga, Masashi and Gaston, Kevin J., Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14(2): 94-101, 2016.
  • 4Nabhan, Gary P. and St Antoine, Sarah, Chapter 7. (pp 229-250) in, The biophilia hypothesis Island Press, 1993.
  • 5Rossmeier, Albert. Chapter 23 (pp 429-449) in, Landscape Conflicts: Springer, 2024.
  • 6Ballouard, Jean-Marie et al. Public Library of Science, 6(8): e23152, 2011.
  • 7Thompson, Ken, et al., Journal of Vegetation Science 14(1): 71-78, 2003.
  • 8Colléony, Agathe, et al., Landscape and Urban Planning 159: 23-31, 2017.
  • 9Anderson et al., HortTechnology 31(4): 458-469.
  • 10Garfinkel, Megan, et al. Biological Conservation 289: 110400, 2024.
  • 11Judson, Olivia. Dr. Tatiana’s sex advice to all creation: The definitive guide to the evolutionary biology of sex. Macmillan, 2003.

New Lab Member: Anna Perry

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Anna Perry joined our lab group, to work on the Building-Integrated Agriculture project that is a collaborative effort between the University of Oregon School of Architecture, OSU College of Agriculture, and WSU Western Center for Metro Extension and Research. Specifically, Anna will be studying the agriculture array that is located outside of the windows on the 5th floor of the PAE Living Building. The arrays currently struggle to produce crops, in part because they go through cycles of drought and over-irrigation.

Urban agriculture arrays sit outside of the 5th floor of the PAE living building. The arrays were originally planted with nursery pots that had water trays beneath them. The nursery pots have been replaced by larger ‘containers within a container’. The building managers have stated that water should not drain out of the rectangular containers. Water draining outside of the containers results in building stains and issues with a first floor ATM.
The arrays were replanted in 2024, to provide more space for soil/growing media. We will be following how plants perform, and will be tracking the soil temperature and moisture throughout the growing season.

Hey everyone! My name is Anna Perry and I use she/her or they/them pronouns. I’m an undergraduate in my final year here at OSU, where I am pursuing double degrees in Soil Science and Sustainability, a minor in Horticulture, and a certificate in Urban Agriculture. 

Anna, in her Corvallis garden.

Aside from my academic pursuits I also have been involved with Ten Rivers Food Web for the past 3 years, a local organization focused on the development of a resilient and sustainable local food system. I’m passionate about food as an unalienable human right, and believe that everyone deserves access to fresh food, regardless of their socio-economic standing.

I grew up in Davis, CA, where I was fortunate to be raised by a mom who is a fervent gardener. I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have this background until I started volunteering at the OSU Organic Growers Club, where I found that most of my fellow students had never gardened before. As the “Berry Manager” for the club in 2022 I found a lot of joy in being part of my peers first exposures to caring for plants, and in eating the literal fruits of our labor.

Last summer I had the privilege of getting to visit Aotearoa/New Zealand for a short faculty-led study abroad. My experiences there prompted me to reevaluate my career and graduate school plans, and as a result I realized that my true interests were more interdisciplinary than I had previously realized. In my time in Aotearoa/New Zealand I became more aware of the effect culture has on land management and design decisions, and by proxy the effect culture can have on the ecological function of landscapes. This prompted a reinvigoration of a long dormant interest in landscape architecture, an area of study which I hope to one day pursue at the PhD level.

My research interests include sustainable urban horticulture/agriculture, building-integrated agriculture, urban soils, and gardens and landscapes as socio-ecological systems. Ultimately, I’m interested in how the land management and design decisions people make impact ecosystem function, especially when food production is involved.

In my (ever-shrinking!) free time I love making and sharing food with my friends and family, knitting, crocheting, gardening, and drinking my weight in tea.

I’m so excited to be the newest member of the Garden Ecology Lab, and for the opportunity to work with such a wonderful and supportive group!

Anna in Palm Springs.

Garden Ecology Lab, Spring 2024 Update

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It has been a while since we last posted a lab update. Although we’ve been quiet on the blog, we have been busy! This post provides a brief update on some of our efforts, over the past several months.

We have a new website! The website serves as our running record of research projects, lab members, and resources for gardeners. Of particular note is the series of ten Garden Ecology Lab Briefs, that translate our research into a two-page document, that can be used by gardeners. Each brief is divided into three sections: 1) Our research, 2) What we found, and 3) How does this relate to your garden. We have briefs on the common bacteria you will find in garden soils, the flowers preferred by specialist bees, and which plants attract beneficial natural enemies to the garden. More briefs will be coming, soon! In addition to the Garden Ecology Lab briefs, we also have a short form infographic and a long form infographic that can help guide gardeners seeking to buy native plants. We hope that these are useful to you, and would love to hear your feedback on these resources and your suggestions for other resources you would like to see.

An example of a Garden Ecology Lab brief. These briefs were created to translate science to action in the garden.

Nicole Bell successfully defended her M.S. thesis, entitled ‘Urban garden bees: Global context and local perspectives’ in November of 2023. Her thesis consisted of a systematic review of the garden bee literature (which she published in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Cities). The second part of her thesis consisted of an online iNaturalist guide and companion booklet (the Portland Bee Guide). Nicole recently started a pollinator outreach position with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Congratulations, Nicole!

The Portland Bee Guide represented one aspect of Nicole Bee’s M.S. thesis work.

Svea Bruslind graduated with an honors B.S., for her thesis entitled ‘Bee’s eye view: using multispectral photography to simulate bee’s view of flowers in natural settings‘. She graduated with a group art show (Confluences, at the Little Gallery at Oregon State University), and a solo art show (A Bee’s Eye View) at the Pine Meadows Ranch for Art and Agriculture.

Svea in front of her photographic array. She captured a garden over the course of a day, using filters that give viewers a glimpse of the colors a bee can see in a garden.

Nina Miller joined our lab group as an M.S. student with a passion for syrphid flies! Nina will be studying the syrphid fly communities of Portland- and Corvallis-area gardens. Specifically, she will document their biodiversity within garden spaces, and will be measuring their capacity for aphid management on kale, collards, mustard greens, and other brassicas. You can learn more about Nina’s study, from this recent blog post.

Anna Perry has joined the lab, to work on a Building-Integrated Agriculture project. Anna will be studying soil moisture and temperature fluctuations, in a 5-th floor urban agriculture array of 13 planter boxes that are part of the PAE Living Building, in Portland Oregon. The data will inform future plantings on this and other urban buildings.

There are 13 containers planted along the east and south windows of this building. Plants are challenged by hot temperatures in the summer, shade, and lack of consistent moisture.

Gail Langellotto worked with Nina Miller and an international group of designers and ecologists to produce a book chapter entitled ‘Supporting Galapagos Native Species via Ecological Landscape Design in Urban Greenspaces’. The chapter came out of the 2023 Association of Pacific Rim University Sustainable Cities and Landscape Conference, which was held in San Cristobal, Galapagos. This interdisciplinary conference coupled architects, designers, and ecologists, to work on urban issues. In the Galapagos, biodiversity drives tourism, but is also under threat from invasive plant species. We compiled a list of 130 native and endemic plant species, and created example landscape designs, to promote the use of native plantings in the urbanized areas of the islands.

Jen Hayes was quoted in this February 2024 Washington Post article about natives and nativars. Jen Hayes and Gail Langellotto were featured in this recent Pacific Horticulture, Voices of the West article. Jen is finishing up revisions to her manuscript reporting pollinator preferences for native plants and native cultivars. We’re excited to share the results with the scientific community, as well as with gardeners.

This is just a sampling of the our work over the last few months. Make sure to bookmark our new lab website, and to share the resources for gardeners with your gardening friends.