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.

How COVID-19 Has Impacted the OSU Garden Ecology Lab

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I asked our group if they would be willing to share how COVID-19 is impacting their science, their studies, and their life. Our collective reflections can be found, below.

Gail Langellotto, Professor and Statewide Master Gardener Coordinator: In early February, I woke up from a dream, sobbing. I had dreamt that my parents were sick in Baltimore, but that domestic air travel had been shut down. I am not an expert in the ecology of infectious disease, but I used to teach infectious disease models to pre-meds. And, there were several things that I saw in reports of this emerging disease that greatly troubled me. Unfortunately, my fears of large scale community spread have come true, and life has changed for us all. Luckily, my parents and sisters continue to be healthy, even though they live in a COVID-19 hotspot.

I teach two face-to-face entomology courses at OSU during the spring term: ENT 311 and ENT/HORT 444/544. I had exactly one week to pivot these classes to fully remote offerings. Instead of real time (and automated) assessment of learning using TopHat, I’m building quizzes and assignments into Canvas, where I am manually grading 210 quizzes and assignments per week. I’ve drastically cut down on course content, in part because I continue to try and focus on essential messaging, but also because I know that many of my students are under immense stress.

Spring term is when I normally move to having a lighter touch with the Master Gardener Program. New Master Gardener students are completing their coursework and exams. Long-time Master Gardeners move their attention to plant sales, garden fairs, and educational outreach. Not this year. Training classes had to move online or to Zoom. Plant sales, garden fairs, and other Master Gardener events were cancelled. Our working group started trading resources and ideas via weekly Zoom meetings. Each new dictate from the Governor or the University requires attention and consideration of how it applies to the Master Gardener Program. It’s been a challenge to stay on top of everything, and a challenge to keep a positive attitude.

In terms of science, there has been good and bad. The ‘bad’ is that, as an Associate Editor of the journal Urban Ecosystems, it has been difficult to find peer reviewers for scientific manuscripts. And, it feels ‘out of touch’ to prod folks to get their reviews in, when they may be sick, or they may be busy home-schooling kids or shopping for senior family members. Also in the ‘bad’, I generally have zero time or energy to work on my own scientific manuscripts. Exhaustion is a constant. The ‘good’ is that I can’t sleep at night. And, during these sleepless nights, I often think about next steps in our research, and plotting out key questions in urban ecology that remain unresolved, but could be addressed in garden systems.

Gail’s workstation at home. The photo of the bear and fish (to the right) is named ‘A meditation on perspective’. When working, I often stop to tell myself ‘be the bear, not the fish’.

Angelee Calder, senior year June 2020, Agricultural Science undergraduate: Covid has greatly impacted my plans and life!  As some of you may remember from my last blog post, I was expecting to spend my final term as a senior at Oregon State University doing an internship in Costa Rica! Twelve days before I was scheduled to leave, we entered a worldwide pandemic and all my plans where flipped and turned upside down! In preparation to leave for Costa Rica, I had put in my 30 day notice in on my apartment and my roommate found somewhere else to live. Last minute, I had to scramble to get my refunds, register for classes, and find somewhere to live. Since then, I have been struggling with homelessness.

Currently, I am living in the emergency housing at OSU provided by the Human Resources and Services Center. While I am extremely thankful to be here, I am only permitted to stay for less than a month. Which means my struggle with homelessness during my final term of school will continue to be an issue well into finals week. I started my first term at OSU homeless and I am finishing my final term homeless! While this is stressful and uncertain, I have managed to continue to kill this term academically. I am proud of myself for prevailing during these hard times to thrive under these heavy pressures and keep my eyes on the prize of my diploma that I have worked 5 long years to earn.

My passion for agriculture and my dedication to school go unwavered. This time has helped me to feel more secure in my chosen field as Agriculture than I ever have before. After seeing the bare shelves at the store and hundreds of thousands of Americans get laid off of their jobs, I realize agriculture is about as “essential” as you can get! My passions and education can not only create stable work for myself but also can help the rest of the world through these difficult times with stable sustainable food production.

Angelee’s workstation at the OSU Human Services Resource Center.

Mericos Rhodes, M.A. Student in Environmental Arts and Humanities. As a practitioner of ecological agriculture, this COVID era is one of the most interesting times of my life. Put simply, I have never witnessed such intense interest in what is, to me, the most interesting topic in the world: local ecological farming.

The farm that I help run, Spoon Full Farm, has completely sold out of CSA memberships and many other items. Our waitlist is growing. Here in Corvallis, the farmers markets are well-adjusted and well-attended. I can understand why: a shorter food chain means far fewer opportunities for food to be contaminated. Healthy nutrient-dense food is a cornerstone of resilient health. Small businesses such as local farms need our support now, more than ever.

In an exciting development, a friend and I are busy converting an old grassy field, across from the Corvallis Fairgrounds, into a small-scale community-based farm. We connected with the landowner after he put up a sign at the co-op seeking farmers! So, our restorative farming project has begun! It doesn’t look like much, but we have 7 chickens moving rapidly through the grass between our dug rows of mixed perennials (mostly currant bushes and thyme), fertilizing the ground to support annual vegetable beds. We plan to dig a little pond and use a heavy mulch of leaves and/or wood chips.

The Corvallis field that Mericos and his partner are converting into a farm.

How is this relevant to the garden ecology lab? In two ways:
First, I am planning my graduate project to be a narrative introduction to ecological farming (stories, characters, motives will be highlighted). This personal experience will be part of the story. Second, this project will put into place many practices suggested by Gail’s Insect Agroecology class (ENT 544), which I am currently taking, including creating diverse perennial habitat for insects, and not spraying pesticides or synthetic nitrogen. It will also be an experiment in “Dry-Farming,” which basically means zero irrigation – perhaps a critical farming technique here in the Northwest, where irrigation water may be in much shorter supply, in the decades to come.

I feel extremely grateful to be able to work outside, with living nature, during these times when so many are stuck in screen world, all day every day.

Aaron Anderson, PhD Candidate: During this uncertain time, I feel lucky to be able to be part of the Garden Ecology Lab and be able to continue my classes and work. As I am in my fourth year as a graduate student here at OSU, I have already collected all of my field data. This means that I am able to hunker down at my desk here at home, without having to worry about the logistics of conducting fieldwork during a pandemic. I’ve been busy taking two courses, and also plugging away on some data entry and statistical work.

Things can be undeniably stressful due to the background worries about COVID-19, but working from home has had some plus sides. The first is the ability to work with a cuddly cat on my lap. I’ve also been able to take breaks out in the yard, where we’ve been working on our garden bed and also seeded the side yard with several native plants from my study. We have Phacelia heterophyla just starting to germinate, and Clarkia amoena and Achillea millefolium are both beginning to bolt. Hopefully, some native bees will be visiting soon!

Aaron’s cat.
Aaron’s side garden.

Signe Danler, Instructor, online Master Gardener training course: As an instructor of an online course, most of my work was already done online via computer before the pandemic hit. I have also worked from home for many years in a variety of jobs, so I already had a full office set up at home, and did much of my OSU work at home already. In this regard, there was not much change – I grabbed a few things from my office at OSU so I would have them at home, and have not been on the campus since the stay-at-home order.

Nevertheless, life suddenly became much more stressful. For the first few weeks, the constant bombardment of new and conflicting information was terribly distracting, making it hard to be productive on any project requiring sustained effort. The cancellation of virtually all events I normally participate in has been saddening and frustrating. With two vulnerable family members at home, we have to exercise great caution in outside contacts. I not only have to do all grocery shopping, but do it in a way that takes much longer than usual, and is tiring and stressful. I’m keeping trips out very infrequent!

All in all, though, I feel we are very fortunate, since we are in a position to ride this situation out with minimal problems. To stay healthy and sane I’ve been taking more walks, which is easy since we live at the edge of town and crowds are non-existent. My large garden is getting more attention than usual, and I’m propagating more of my own plants to reduce nursery visits. As I have adjusted to the new normal, my ability to focus is getting back to normal too, and I am confident we’ll get through it just fine. 

Signe’s Plant starts.

Mykl Nelson, Instructor of Urban Agriculture: The first thing I noticed was how much remained the same. I was already fully remote and integrated with eCampus. I was lucky. I watched the flurry of emails, the hectic conference meetings, the string of popular articles. Everyone seemed to scramble as essentially the entire academic world pushed to move fully online and remote. I’m excited to see this push because I hope to see advancement in the teaching of remote teachers. When I first started trying to educate myself about educating others in agricultural topics in a remote classroom, I saw very little supporting material. I hope that changes now.

I’ve seen real changes in the community around me. Store shelves lay bare as a slow realization—the façade of abundance—spreads across stores. I know from my time as a grocery clerk that those shelves aren’t stocked that deep, and the “back stock” is kept as thin as possible. I’m watching my country get squeezed around me; the most vulnerable of my fellow citizens being forced to confront the more dire aspects of this pandemic. 

But in this panic, I feel safe. I get to add yet another scenario to the privileged category of my life. From my youth in a military family to my time now as university faculty, I am repeatedly shown the benefits of access to health care. When it comes to basic hygiene and global health, I want everyone to be able to wash their hands just as easily as they could access medicine. It only makes sense to extend such secure foundations to as many people as possible.

Mykl’s workstation in Central Oregon.

Happy 50th Anniversary of Earth Day

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Today is the 50th anniversary of earth day. I am almost as old as earth day (I will turn 50, next February), and am finding myself in a reflective mood.

Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by and loved nature. I used to try and catch lightning bugs, and put them in a mason jar, hoping to catch so many that I could make a lantern. Today, when I visit my folks near my childhood home, nary a lightning bug can be found. Scientists suspect that increased landscape development has removed the open field habitats and forests that the lightning bugs depend upon to display their mating signals and to live. Light pollution likely also plays a role.

lightning bug 8758
Eastern Lightning Bug. Photo Credit: Terry Priest. https://www.flickr.com/photos/artfarmer/197649535

My time in college was my first real exposure to nature. I worked at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, supporting the work of James Wagner when he was a graduate student at UMBC. He was studying wolf spiders, and I fell in love with these amazing creatures. Did you know that wolf spider mommas carry their young on their back ~ at least for the first few days of a baby spider’s life? Did you know that to collect wolf spiders, you go out at night with a flashlight . . . shining the flashlight into the forest floor litter, to find eight tiny glowing eyes staring back at you? Wolf spider eyes glow, as an adaptation to capture more light (enabling them to see better) when hunting at night. Like a cat’s eye, wolf spiders have a tapetum at the back of their eye . . . a mirror that re-reflects light back out, and lets the spider’s eyes have a second shot at capturing that light. My time working with James was magical. For the first time in my life, I gained the skills to identify trees, and wildflowers, and birds, and insects. I tell people that it was as if a scrim had been lifted from my eyes, and I saw the world in an entirely different light. I was forever changed, by this newfound knowledge that allowed me to ‘read’ the natural world in a different way.

Behind the rusty eyes
A wolf spider. Photo Credit: Jean and Fred. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jean_hort/4430861610

As a graduate student, I studied salt marsh insects on the New Jersey coastline. I had never been to a salt marsh before, despite living within an hour of the ribbon of salt marsh that hugs the eastern seaboard. I saw horseshoe crabs for the very first time. I saw the fishing spiders in the genus Dolomedes that I had read about in books. I went bird watching and butterfly hunting with scientists who were generous with their time and knowledge, most notably, my advisor, Robert Denno. Now, so much of that ribbon of coastline has been destroyed. What remains is at risk due to increased nutrient pollution from fertlizers and run-off.

Big cordgrass salt marsh
Tall grass in an eastern salt marsh. Photo Credit: Ecological Society of America. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ecologicalsocietyofamerica/25086412492

My post-doctoral work was spent in California on many projects, including studying the food webs of cotton fields that were using organic or conventional production practices. From talking to the farmers and stakeholders, I learned that there are not insurmountable impediments to growing organic cotton. The problem was that there was a limited market for organic cotton, grown in the United States. Growers who would plant organic cotton faced an uncertain market and reduced yields. Often, reduced yields might be compensated for with a premium price for organic products. But not in the case of US-grown organic cotton. This is when I first started to realize that science can not work in a silo, but that an understanding of economics and the social sciences is critical to promoting more sustainable solutions.

My first faculty position was at Fordham University in the Bronx. I had no idea what I would study, as an entomologist in the Bronx. Luckily, I had the great fortune of taking on Kevin Matteson as my first graduate student. Kevin had been studying the birds of New York City community gardens. I asked him if he might be willing to instead study insects. His work was ground-breaking and is heavily cited, showing the potential of small garden fragments in one of the most heavily populated cities in the world, to support a diverse and abundant assemblage of insects. He also showed that the strongest predictor of butterfly and bee diversity in gardens was floral cover. Through Kevin’s work, as well as associated work by Evelyn Fetridge, Peter Werrell, and others in our Fordham lab group, I became convinced that the decisions that we make in home and community gardens have the potential to make a real and positive difference in this world.

I came to OSU in 2007, for the opportunity to work with about 30 faculty and staff and between 3,000-4,000 volunteers who were dedicated to sustainable gardening. Coming from a teaching and research position to an Extension position was initially a challenge for me. I recognized importance of bringing good science to Extension and outreach work, but I didn’t know exactly how I would or could contribute. In 2016, I started the Garden Ecology Lab at OSU, mostly because I was more convinced than ever, that having good science to guide garden design and management decisions can truly make a positive difference in this world. I sometimes talk about ‘how gardening will save the world’, which is a lofty and aspirational goal. But, I truly believe (and science backs up this belief), that the decisions that we make on the small parcels of land that we might have access to in a community or home garden matter. These design and management decisions can either improve our environment (by provisioning habitat for pollinators and other wildlife) or harm our environment (by contributing to nutrient runoff in our waterways, or by wasting water when irrigation systems fall on the sidewalk more than on our plants).

This is one reason that I stand in awe of the Master Gardener Program. When I was purely a researcher, rarely interacting with the public, I doubt that many people were able to take our research findings and apply them in their own yard. When I was initially struggling with my new Extension position, I went to my former Department Head at the University of Maryland entomology deparment, Mike Raupp. Mike had a lot of experience with Extension and outreach, in addition to being a world-reknown researcher and a super-nice person. I remember him saying ‘Gail, when you publish a research paper, you’re lucky if 20 eggheads will read it. When you talk to the Master Gardeners, you have the opportunity to make real change in this world.’

And together with the Master Gardeners, I hope that is what we have done. I hope that is what we will continue to do. I hope that we find new and novel ways to discover how folks can manage pests without pesticides, to reduce water use in the home garden, and to build pollinator- and bird-friendly habitat. And then I hope that we will reach and teach our neigbhors and friends how to appreciate the biodiversity in their own back yard, and the small changes that they can make to improve the garden environment that they tend. I hope that we can instill a wonder for the natural world in the next generations, and to preserve or improve the natural world, so that our kids, and grandkids, and subsequent generations can hunt for lightning bugs, or spiders, or butterflies.

And I want to do it with you, dear gardeners. Together, we truly can make a difference.

Does Repeated, Lethal Sampling Contribute to Insect Declines?

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Over the past few months, I have shared data on bees and other insects that we have collected from Portland-area gardens. For every garden insect we study (except for butterflies, which can be identified to species by sight), we use lethal collection methods. This is because most insects can only be identified to species after close examination under the microscope. In fact, some insects require dissection before we can get them to species.

Bombus sitkensis male, with abdomen dissected, in order to make a species-level identification.

It seems odd that we kill bees in order to help understand how we can build gardens that can help to conserve bees. By collecting and killing bees and other insects, what role were we playing in promoting insect decline? How do projects, such as our own as well as the Oregon Bee Atlas, factor into bee declines?

That’s an excellent question, and one that we often ask ourselves. When we collect bees, we work to make sure that we are not needlessly causing harm. For example, our pan traps are good for collecting small bees, but are not good at collecting larger bees, including reproductive queens. When we hand-collect bees, we avoid taking queen bees. In fact, of the 2,716 bees that we collected in 2017-2019, only three were queens. We limited our sampling frequency to three times per year, and limited our sampling effort to 10 minutes of hand-collecting time and six pan traps, per garden. Even with these precautions, we are still faced with the question: does our research, or the research of others who collect and kill insects, harm the very species we are trying to conserve?

Water pan traps, used to collect garden bees and other small, flying insects. Insects are attracted to the color. When they land in the soapy water, they break the surface tension, drown, and die.

To address this question, I turn to the scientific literature. Gezon and colleagues set up an experiment to see whether lethal sampling for bees using pan traps and netting (the same methods we use in our research) has negative effects on bee abundance or bee diversity. For five years, they sampled nine sites every two weeks during the flowering season. They compared bee abundance and bee diversity in these repeatedly-sampled sites, to metrics from 17 comparable sites that were only sampled once. They found no significant difference in bee capture rate, bee species richness, or bee abundance between sites that were sampled repeatedly versus those that were sampled once. When they partitioned bees according to nesting habit (e.g. cavity, soil, wood, etc.), social structure (e.g. eusocial or not), and body size (e.g. small, medium, and large bees) they also found no significant differences in bee capture rates of single-sample versus repeat-sampled sites. They did catch more pollen specialists in repeated-sample sites than in single sample sites. However, the magnitude of the effect was relatively small, and did not represent a large change in catch rate between single-sample versus repeat-sampled sites. I suspect that the authors caught more pollen specialists at their repeat-sampled sites, because pollen specialists are fairly rare in time and in space. They drastically increased their odds of intercepting a pollen specialist on their repeatedly-sampled sites.

Gezon and colleagues suggest a few hypotheses that could explain why increased sampling effort had no significant effect on bee abundance or diversity. First, they suggest that reducing bee populations by sampling could benefit the bees that remain, by reducing competition for limited resources. If this is the case, bee populations can compensate for some losses due to sampling, by increasing reproduction in the bees that remain behind. Second, they note that if bees were sampled after they have mated and laid eggs, the overall impact of removing a bee from via sampling will be fairly small. Finally, they note that most bees are solitary, and that most solitary bees have short flight seasons. In this case, sampling every two weeks may not result in bee declines, if researchers are effectively collecting a new species during each sampling event.

I can breathe a bit easier. The data suggests that our research is not immediately responsible for documented bee declines. Still, I know that I can personally do more to help protect bees in my own garden. Even though our lab group studies native plants, I have not yet planted Aster subspicatus (Douglas’ Aster) in my own garden. This will be my mission for 2020: to find and plant this gorgeous perennial at home. In 2018 and 2019, it bloomed from mid June through mid November at our study plots in Aurora, OR, with peak bloom (75% or more of the plant in bloom) lasting one month! And, from 2017-2019, it was always a top five plant for native bee abundance. I give this Pacific Northwest native plant my highest recommendation for home gardens! There are plants that attract more native bees, such as Phacelia heterophylla. But, no other plant that we studied offers the triple threat of beauty, bees, and longevity.

Douglas’ aster (Aster subspicatus) is currently my favorite garden plant for bees.

What Does Permaculture Mean to You?

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This week’s post comes from Mericos Rhodes, who is a MAIS student at Oregon State University. His M.A. studies combine the fields of Horticulture, Food in Culture and Social Justice, and Public Policy Mericos’s capstone thesis will be comparing the history, practices, philosophies, available research funding, and scientific basis of four agricultural approaches: biodynamic, permaculture, organic, and regenerative farming. Mericos is a farmer, himself. He’s also a deep thinker and eloquent speaker and writer. We think about farming in two very different ways: I am more of a scientist and he is a practioner and an artist. I look forward to our conversations, because I always broaden my perspective after talking with Mericos. He’s truly been a delight to have in the lab. (-Gail-)

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What does the word ‘permaculture’ mean, to you? 

Maybe ‘permaculture’ brings to mind an herb spiral, with rosemary, thyme, and some basil crowning it in summer. Or you may envision intricate systems of swales, which slow down and carry water to ridgelines. Maybe it’s as simple as letting ducks into an orchard. Or maybe ‘permaculture’ means nothing to you, at all!

Permaculture spiral in progress. Photo by James Keller. https://www.flickr.com/photos/semaphoria/2468761366 Creative Commons license.

Well, permaculture is most definitely a thing. Yet it’s a slippery thing, a concept full of emergent behaviors and biodiverse adaptation, unsuited to singular, rigid definition. Permaculture has been growing “from the bottom up,” and its distributed growth takes as many forms as there are watersheds on this planet. Indeed, one of the difficulties of defining permaculture is due to its fundamental principle that no particular crops, tools, or techniques are universally beneficial, for land management and food production. Learn your land. Learn its quirks, its frost pockets, and its native flora and fauna. Let what you learn guide you. Of course, following these principles will lead to vastly different techniques and plantings, across the world’s different ecosystems.

Unlike “conventional” industrial, yield-driven modern agriculture farms, no two permaculture farms will look alike. Even the cultural trappings of permaculture affirm this diversity: instead of “conferences,” permaculture people gather in “convergences,” to share evolving ideas and practices. 

The distributed, evolutionary, informal nature of ‘permaculture’ makes it a nightmare for rigorous research. During my very first conversation with Dr. Langellotto, she brought this up. My application letter had mentioned an interest in applying permaculture to broad-scale agriculture. Just seeing “the P word” made her wary, she said. Luckily, my interest wasn’t a deal breaker, it was an inspiration: Dr. Langellotto suggested that I direct my interdisciplinary research towards defining permaculture in a way that researchers could use to study it.

So part of my inquiry is a simple question with a complex answer: “What is permaculture?”

Along with permaculture, i will also be examining organic and regenerative farming. ‘Organic’ has been codified by the USDA, a process that has directed more funding, research, and legitimacy to that type of farming, but has diluted the whole concept, in the eyes of many elder organic farmers. ‘Regenerative’ is a newfangled, five syllable word that seems to refer to farm practices that actively build soil health, rather than depleting or even simply maintaining it. The word is tossed around more and more, with relative impunity.

Can we create a system that defines, legitimizes, stabilizes, and preserves the spirit of ‘regenerative,’ in a way that ‘organic’ no longer does, for many farmers and ecological eaters? Is that possible for permaculture? That’s the hope, and the motivation for my studies.

If all of this sounds more qualitative than the research that you may expect from a horticulture department, that’s because it is! However, I am loving being a part of the Garden Ecology Lab, and the Horticulture department, because the plant and insect-focused research being undertaken by my peers constantly grounds me. All of these types of agriculture and land management are, after all, just different ways of interacting with plants, animals, and soil. My hope is that my presence here may inspire those who think so beautifully about horticulture and all of its related fields to deeply consider how our work affects the biodiversity of life on this planet, climate change, and the role that our human species can play in healing the Earth.

Flies as Pollinators

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This post comes from Cliff Brock, who is a graduate student in the Contreras (plant breeding), Langellotto (pollinators), and Lambrinos (invasive plants) lab groups. Cliff is studying the impact that plant breeding has on invasiveness and pollinator visits in butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) and its cultivars. Having three co-advisors can be extremely challenging. However, Cliff has been a true joy to work with, and seems to have navigating the complexities of three labs, quite well.

Cliff decided to write about flies as pollinators. When I asked him why he wanted to write about flies, he mentioned that they usually pollinate flowers that have foul smells, or that may not be as attractive as other flowering plants. He said that he has a special place in his heart for these ‘botanical underdogs’ ~ a sentiment that I thought was sincerely sweet.

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While bees deservedly get most of the attention regarding their pollination services, many of our most important crops and wildflowers are primarily pollinated by flies.  Generally speaking, fly-pollinated flowers are dark maroons to reds and emit earthy, fermented, or putrid aromas.   The coevolution of plants and flies has resulted in some of the most amazing and unusual flowers.  The largest flowers in the word, Amorphophallus and Rafflesia, are almost exclusively pollinated by flies and beetles.And even our beloved chocolate requires a small midge fly for its sole pollinator. 

Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic plants from SE Asia.  Some have blooms 39″ in diameter.
Photo Source: https://en.wikipedia.org› wiki › Rafflesia

Here in the US, many of our most beloved spring ephemerals have coevolved with flies.  While many Trillium are bee pollinated (e.g. the abundant white Trillium ovatum), species with red and brown flowers are primarily pollinated by fungus gnats.  The iconic American pawpaw (Asimina triloba), which has seen a resurgence in popularity, smells of rotting flesh and is irresistible to a whole host of fly species.

Here we see Trillium erectum (or stinking Benjamin) absolutely covered with fungus gnats.  Photo from Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Asarum, or wild ginger, is a generally diminutive herbaceous plant often grown as a groundcover.  The odd flowers are born close to the ground and are usually hidden from human view.   Yet I find them particular beautiful, and every year I look forward to rediscovering them beneath the mottled foliage.  Asarum takes fungal mimicry to a new level.  Panda ginger, one of the Asian species, is especially funky.  The flowers mimic the colors, textures, and smells of toadstools.

Asarum maximum (as seen on the left)might have evolved to mimic a woodland fungus somewhat like the black morel, below.  Wild ginger photo from Plant Delights Nursery. Morel photo from Ohio mushroom society.

Cited Sources:

Megachile Bees from Portland-Area Gardens

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Every June – August, from 2017-2019, we collected bees from 25 Portland area gardens. As I start to build out a Bee Guide for Portland Gardens, I wanted to highlight some of the notable bees that we collected. We are still waiting for our 2019 bees to be identified. The details, below, are for bees that were collected in 2017 and 2018 and identified by Sarah Kornbluth (2017) or Gabe Foote (2018).

We collected five species of bee in the genus Megachile:

  • Megachile rotundata (2 females and 1 male)
  • Megachile angelarum (8 females and 5 males)
  • Megachile perihirta (1 female)
  • Megachile fidelis (3 females)
  • Megachile centuncularis (1 female)

Worldwide, Megachile bees are extremely diverse: an estimated 1,400 species of Megachile bees can be found, globally and an estimated 140 species of Megachile can be found in the United States. These bees are in the Family Megachilidae, which includes the leafcutting (e.g. Megachile species), mason (e.g .Osmia species), and wool carder bees (e.g. Anthidium species). In the family Megachilidae, females carry pollen on their abdomen.

In this post, I wanted to cover Megachile fidelis, Megachile perihirta, and Megachile angelarum.

Bee Species Origin Diet Sociality Nesting
Megachile angelarum Native Generalist (Prefers Lavandula, Perovskia, Vitex) Solitary Cavity
Megachile perihirta Native Generalist Solitary Soil
Megachile fidelis Native Generalist (Prefers Asters) Solitary Cavity

Megachile angelarum was the most common bee in this genus that we collected from Portland area gardens.

Megachile angelarum female.

Diet: Although this species has been collected from a broad array of floral hosts (see list from Discover Life), Frankie et al. (2014) note that this species prefers lavenders (Lavendula), Russian sage (Perovskia), and chaste tree (Vitex).

Sociality: This species is solitary, which means that each individual female builds her own nest, collects nectar and pollen to provision her young, and lays her own eggs. In bees with advanced social structures, such as honey bees, the workers collect nectar and pollen to feed the young, and the queen lays the eggs. Solitary bees die soon after they build their nest, load nest cells with pollen and nectar, lay their eggs, and seal the nest cell shut. Many solitary bees may nest in close proximity to each other. Thus, solitary bee doesn’t mean loner bee; it means that the female does all of the work on her own, without cooperation or collaboration from other bees in her species.

Nesting: Megachile angelarum nests in cavities. Rather than cutting leaves, females collect resins and gums to partition nest cells. Since this bee does not cut leaves, it lacks teeth on its mandibles, unlike other bees in the genus. The bee has been found in drilled pine wood (10cm deep holes, 0.5 cm in diameter; Dicks et al. 2010). Other studies have found this species in nest blocks with a 3/16th hole size (Galasetti 2017).

Appearance: Like many bees in this genus, it is a robust-sized bee, with females typically spanning 10-11 mm in length and males a bit smaller, at 8-9 mm in length. The lack of teeth and cutting edges on the mandibles can be helpful for identification.

Megachile angelarum. The mandibles are a bit hard to see, by they are in the lower portion of the face. Note that there are no teeth, or serrated edges on the mandibles, which is a characteristic of this bee.

Notes: Across 2017-2018, we collected this bee from seven different Portland area gardens, or nearly 1/3 of our sampled gardens. Megachile angelarum is likely parasitized by another bee, Stelis laticincta. Stelis laticincta is a social parasite, or cleptoparasite of other bees. What this means is that Stelis laticincta invades the nest of another bee, and lay their own eggs, just as cuckoo birds do with other birds. Once the Stelis laticincta eggs hatch, the larvae kill the Megachile angelarum larvae, and eat the pollen and nectar provisions that have been provided by the Megachile angelarum mother.

We collected a single Stelis laticincta in 2017-2018, and it came from a garden where we collected four Megachile angelarum specimens. Having a healthy Megachile angelarum population increases your chances of having more bee species, by supporting cleptoparasites, such as Stelis laticincta.

Megachile perihirta is commonly known as the Western leafcutter bee.

Diet: This bee is a generalist, and will collect nectar and pollen from many different types of flowering plants.

Sociality: Solitary (see notes for M. angelarum).

Nesting: Unlike many Megachile bees, this species does not nest in cavities, but instead digs shallow nests in the soil (Frankie et al. 2014, page 102). I had thought that all bees in the genus Megachile were cavity nesters. (Actually, I thought that all bees in the family Megachilidae were cavity nesters). But, Eickworth et al. (1981) report that soil excavation was widespread in the family Megachilidae and in the genus Megachile.

Appearance: This was the largest Megachile species we collected. Females  typically spanning 13-14 mm in length and males span 12-13 mm in length.

Megachile perihirta female.

I am soooooo sad that we didn’t collect a male of this species! The males have enlarged forelegs, covered with hairs (photos of the males can be found here and here), which the MALES USE TO COVER THE FEMALES EYES DURING MATING!!!! Biologists suggest that this helps to keep females calm and receptive, during mating (Frankie et al. 2014, page 103).

Notes:  We only collected a single specimen of this bee. It came from our smallest garden (1,800 square feet in size), in an industrial area of Northeast Portland. And seriously: how cool is it to have a bee species where the mating ritual includes the male covering the females eyes with his super-hairy forearms!!!??

Megachile fidelis

Diet: Frankie et al. (2014) note that this species seems to prefer plants in the Asteraceae, including Aster, Erigeron, Rudbekia, Cosmos, and Helenium). Hurd et al. (1980) note that this species is commonly collected from sunflowers (Helianthus).

Sociality: Solitary (see notes for M. angelarum).

Nesting: This is a cavity nesting bee that tends to occupy larger holes (0.65 to 0.80 cm in diameter (Barthell et al. 1998). Unlike Megachile angelarum, which does not cut leaves or petals to line their nest cells, UC Davis has a great photo of a female Megachile fidelis carrying a piece of Clarkia petal. In his native bee research, Aaron Anderson would regularly find bees cutting neat discs from Clarkia flowers. I wonder, now, if collecting petal discs from Clarkia flowers is characteristic of M. fidelis.

Appearance: This species is another robust-sized bee. Females  typically spanning 11-13 mm in length and males span 10-12 mm in length.

Megachile fidelis female.

Once again, I am beyond bummed that we didn’t collect a male of this species! Males of this species also have enlarged forelegs covered with long hairs, although not as pronounced as in male M. perihirta. Once again, biologists suspect that the males use their hairy forearms to cover the females eyes during mating (Frankie et al. 2014, page 103).

Notes: We collected one specimen from a 0.2 acre, flower-filled garden that is adjacent to a golf course in Canby. The other two specimens were collected from a 0.1 acre, flower-filled garden in Northeast Portland. 

Unpopular Opinion: Saving Honey Bees Does Very Little to Save the Bees

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Although I have been studying garden bees for the past three years, I was never focused on honey bees. From a biodiversity point of view, they are not very interesting to me. They are non-native and abundant. In fact, honey bees were the most abundant bee species that we collected in Portland-area gardens (332 individuals collected), even though we took great care not to collect more than one individual per visit, when hand-collecting.

Some of the 300+ individual honey bees that we collected from Portland area gardens, even though we took great care to not hand collect more than a single individual honey bee per garden, per site visit.

Honey bees, which hail from Europe, are only one of 20,000 bee species, worldwide. In North America, there are 4,000 species of bee. In Oregon, we have between 400-500 species of bee. From Portland area gardens, we have documented 86 species of bee (with our 2019 bees still awaiting identification).

Unlike some native bees, honey bees are not at risk of extinction. Compare this to bumblebees. We found 17 species of bumblebee in Portland gardens, two of which (12%) are at risk of endangerment or extinction, due to declining populations: Bombus fervidus and Bombus caliginosus. Across North America, more than 25% of bumblebee species are thought to be at risk of extinction.

  • Frontal view of Bombus fervidus, a threatened bumblebee species that can be found in Portland area gardens.
  • Dorsal view of Bombus fervidus, a threatened bumblebee species that can be found in Portland area gardens.

By focusing ‘save the bee’ campaigns on honey bees, we may be neglecting the bee species that really need our help. In fact, researchers have started to call out organizations and advertising campaigns that promote feel good stories about honey bee conservation as a form of ‘bee washing’. You can visit www.bee-washing.com to learn more about companies that promote their product or organization as being bee-friendly, in a less than genuine way.

Researchers have documented at least seven different ways that honey bees may harm native bee species (summarized in Cane and Tepedino, 2016):

  1. Honey bees monopolize and deplete nectar and pollen from local plant communities, which can reduce native bee reproduction.
  2. By depleting local plant resources, native bee females have to devote more time and energy to fly and find new resources, which also reduces native bee reproduction.
  3. Unlike honey bees, most bees are solitary, which means that they do not live in colonies and they do not have a queen. Solitary females who have access to fewer floral resources produce fewer daughters and more sons. Since female bees are needed to maintain a population, this skewed sex ratio can slow population growth and recovery in native bees.
  4. When females collect less nectar and pollen, they have less food to feed their young. These bees grow up to be smaller, and are more likely to die over winter, compared to well-fed bees.
  5. The longer a solitary bee mom is away from her nest, the higher risk that parasites and predators will attack her unguarded young.
  6. Honey bees can physically block native, solitary bees from preferred pollen hosts.
  7. Honey bees have many diseases. Some honey bee viruses have been found in native bee communities. Researchers think flowers that are visited by both native bees and honey bees are analogous to an elementary school water fountain: a place where repeat visitors can pick up a pathogen.

Please note that I am not suggesting that you extinguish honey bees from your garden. What I am asking, instead, is that you take the time to learn about and to notice some of the other 80+ species of bee that you might find in your garden. My group is creating a ‘Bees of Portland Gardens’ guide that we hope can help you in this journey. In the meantime, there are some great guides that are currently available. One is Wilson and Carrill’s ‘The Bees in Your Backyard: a guide to North America’s bees’. This book is available at Powell’s City of Books, as well as on Amazon. The second is August Jackson’s ‘The Bees of the Willamette Valley: a comprehensive guide to genera’. This free guide can be found online.

The first step to saving something you love is to be able to recognize it and to call it by name.

References

  • Cane and Tepedino. 2016. Gauging the effect of honey bee pollen collection on native bee communities. Conservation Letters 10: 205-210.
  • Jackson. 2019. The Bees of the Willamette Valley: A Comprehensive Guide to Genera. Self-Published, Online: https://tinyurl.com/y4qfssrl.
  • Wilson and Carrill. 2016. Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North America’s Bees. Princeton University Press.

How Alan Alda Helped Me to Become a Better Teacher

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A few weeks ago, I tweeted about the difference that the Alda Center for Communicating Science has made in my teaching. To my sincere surprise and delight, Mr. Alda, himself, quoted my tweet, in one of his own. It made my day.

And today, after my last lecture of the term, the lab instructor sent me this note:

“I have students here putting in extra time (!!) on their [insect] collections, and they’re talking about how much they loved your class, and the applause you got at the end of class today. One of them is saying how it’s about time she had a class that was 100% relevant to Ag. I’m so happy for you, Gail, . . . I wish you could hear their conversation 🙂 “

To fully appreciate how much these comments mean to me, you have to understand how much of a struggle it is for me to teach. I score very high on the introversion scale. I hate the idea of teaching as performance (why do I have to entertain them?). I’m a stickler for academic rigor. My classes have a reputation for being difficult. And, I teach a required course that all majors must take (whether they are interested in entomology, or not), that is scheduled for M/W/F at 8am. All of these things, added together, make me a fairly unpopular teacher.

But this term was different. In January, I spent two days in New York City for the Alda Center for Communicating Science STEM immersion program. This workshop could not have come at a better time in my professional career. I was burnt out, in part because of: (a) the corporatization of higher education, (b) students who increasingly take a customer-centered approach to their education (where the customer is always right), (c) attacks on and rollbacks of scientific progress at Federal Agencies, and (d) public distrust of science. These things have all taken their toll on me and on my love for my profession. I was looking for something to re-ignite my love for science and teaching, and to stave off my growing cynicism.

The Alda immersion program did all of these things, and more. The premise of the workshop is that ‘Connection is the Key’ to effective science communication. The workshop instructors (including Alan Alda) use improv exercises in small groups and with partners to teach storytelling, message design, and how to really listen to, empathize with, and engage with your audience. Key messages were embraced over the recitation of hypotheses and theory. A heavy focus was put on connecting with your audience, so that even if they were not ready to listen to you in that moment of time, you might be able engage them at some point in the future.

There were two turning points to the workshop, at least for me.

The first was when we partnered up with someone to explain our science in 2 minutes, then 1 minute, then 30 seconds. Between each round, our partner gave us feedback on how to refine our message. When we came back together as a group, each person had to explain their partner’s science, rather than their own. In almost all cases, folks did better explaining someone else’s science ~ because we didn’t get bogged down in details. This really helped me to limit how much information I present in my classes. Instead of teaching *everything a person should possibly know* about a topic, I focus on key points, and how those points relate to students’ lives.

The second was when Mr. Alda demonstrated how he would discuss science with someone who believes the earth is flat. There was such a genuine kindness in the ‘conversation’ he had with the flat-earther ~ acknowledging their experience (the earth looks flat to them) while adhering to the science that demonstrates that earth is a sphere. It made me realize that I had become so accustomed to being right and defending my interpretation of science, that I rarely listened to others who disagreed with me. I was too busy formulating my retort, to truly listen to and understand their perspective.

This revelation was coupled with an exercise that was called ‘My Dear Friend’. In this exercise, you spend a few minutes ranting at your partner about something that drives you crazy. I ranted about the state of higher education, today. Your partner then has to share your rant with the group, by saying something like ‘this is my dear friend, Gail, and she cares passionately about the education that her students receive.’ I use this exercise, nearly every week. In fact, when I returned to the office from the workshop, there was an anonymous letter in my mailbox that was signed by ‘a disgruntled Master Gardener’. I reread that letter, and instead of feeling attacked, I could see how much the person loved this program that I help to coordinate, and how they wanted to share their passion for the program.

In terms of my teaching, the Alda workshop helped me to slow down, focus on key messages, and truly care for my students. This term, I am 6 classes behind where I would normally be. But, I think my students learned and retained more than they have in the past.

I stopped worrying about students who missed class, or who might try to cheat. Instead, I designed my class so that students who had to miss class (for whatever reason) had built in buffers that could help them absorb or make up lost points. These included things like dropping your two lowest quizzes, or earning extra credit points for lecture participation. I built an array of assessments into the class, including TopHat clickers from mobile devices, and adding ample short answer and essay sections to my exams. These things both made it more difficult to cheat, but also offered students with different learning styles different chances to do well.

I started bringing in breakfast on Fridays. I did this because Thursday is the traditional ‘party night’ on a university campus. In the past, my 8am Friday classes often had 15 or fewer people in attendance. (There are 50 enrolled in the course). I wanted to bring a small breakfast to say ‘thank you for showing up’. Over the course of the term, more and more students started to show up, and not just on Fridays. They went out of their way to thank me. Some told me that they were hungry, and that the small meal made a big difference to their day. Being a Filipina who loves to feed people, by nature, that’s all I needed.

There were a few other things, as well . . . students who shared some difficulty that they were going through that made it difficult for them to do well in class. Instead of my past approach of ‘not my problem’, I tried to help where I could.

Mostly, when I stopped feeling like I was there to serve as some sort of academic guardian . . . keeping all but the most-worthy students out . . . that’s when everyone (including myself) became invested in learning.

When I said goodbye to my students today, I heard the applause . . . but I was so confused. Was someone watching YouTube videos, in the back? It honestly makes me tear up to think that it might have been because they loved the learning environment that we built, together.

Native Plants and Pollinator Survey

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Aaron Anderson is repeating his original survey on native plants and pollinators. This time, he is trying to understand how knowledge of a plant’s ecological function may alter impressions of native plants.

The survey takes about 25-30 minutes to complete. Folks who have taken the survey thus far have commented on how much they learned from taking the time to answer the questions.

If your time and interest allows, we would be extremely grateful if you could take the time to respond to this survey. The direct link to the survey is:

http://oregonstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Alhv961rZX8Vs9

If you have friends or acquaintances who also might be interested in taking the survey, please feel free to share it with them.

A syrphid fly pays a visit to a California poppy at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center.

A bee visiting one of the Canada goldenrod plots in our Native Plant study.

Gilia capitata

Lotus unifoliolatus

Is the Insect Apocalypse Upon Us?

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With all due respect to Beyonce, insects were recognized as ‘The Little Things that Run the World‘ by entomologist E.O. Wilson, decades before Beyonce’s 2011 hit song. As Wilson wrote in his iconic perspective piece:

The truth is that we need invertebrates but they don’t need us. If human beings were to disappear tomorrow, the world would go on with little change.

In fact, Wilson noted, the Earth ‘would set about healing itself‘. But if invertebrates were to disappear, Wilson predicts that ‘I doubt the human species could last more than a few months‘.

 

California Tortoiseshell, taken in a Portland-area garden on August 22, 2017.

Insects, the most abundant and numerous of all invertebrate animals, play a particularly important role in our world and in our life. Not counting the enormous contributions of non-native honey bees, which annually help to bring $235 and $577 billion dollar worth of food to the global market, native insects contribute $71 billion dollars (inflation adjusted to 2019) worth of ecological services to our economy and to our society.

So what are we to make of the recent NY Times article entitled ‘The Insect Apocalypse is Here‘, or the Atlantic article entitled ‘Is the Insect Apocalypse Really Upon Us?’.

These articles covered recent science papers that have caused a lot of concern, and generated a lot of attention. In the ENT 518 class that I am teaching this term (Current Topics in Entomology), our class spent time dissecting and discussing the science papers, as well as popular press coverage of each study.

The first paper, published in 2017 by Hallman and colleagues, documented a 76% decline in insect biomass over a time period spanning nearly three decades. In the peak summer season, the decline was even larger (82%). These researchers had been sampling protected areas in Germany using Malaise traps. This group is working to identify the insects that they collect ~ but, because it takes so much time and specialized expertise to identify most insects to species ~ they also took data on the collective weight of the insects that they collected. This is how they were able to show a 76% decline in insect biomass, between 1989 and 2016.

Mardon Skipper taken in a Portland-area garden on August 22, 2017.

What caused this massive decline in insect biomass? To address this question, They constructed a series of models to try and identify what factors might explain this precipitous drop in insect biomass (which is being used a proxy for insect abundance). They did not find evidence (from their mathematical models) that climate factors (e.g. temperature, precipitation, wind speed), habitat factors (e.g. site conditions, plant species), or habitat factors (e.g. amount of forest, grassland, water) were responsible for insect declines. Because they did not find evidence that climate change, landscape conversions, or habitat changes reduced insect biomass, they concluded that factors which they did not measure were responsible for insect declines. Specifically, they hypothesize that agricultural intensification (pesticide use, year round tillage, increased use of fertilizers) was a plausible cause.

Students taking the ENT 518 class were mostly convinced that the researchers had documented a large and significant decrease in insect biomass over the time period of the study. Students agreed that the loss of biomass reflects a loss in insect abundance, and probably reflects a loss of insect diversity. Students were more reserved in their assessment of the authors’ suggestion that agricultural intensification was the cause of the decline. Although they agreed that it is a plausible explanation, they wanted to see data to address this hypothesis, rather than having the authors arrive at this conclusion because they eliminated other potential causes of insect decline (e.g. climate change, landscape conversion, habitat change).

Western Tiger Swallowtail, taken in a Portland-area garden on July 27, 2017.

The second paper, published in 2019 by Sanchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys, was a review of other papers that studied insect declines. The authors searched science databases for the words ‘insect’ AND ‘decline’ AND ‘survey’, and then reviewed the hundreds of papers (653!) that they found to limit their survey to 73 long-term studies that took place for 10 years of more. The authors then summarize the details of each study, according to major insect groups (e.g. butterflies, bees, beetles, flies). Ultimately, they report that 41% of all insects are in decline, and that across all insect species, the annual rate of decline is 1% per year, and the annual rate of insect extinction is 1% per year. Like the Hallman et al. paper, Sanchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys suggest that agriculture is to blame:

‘Overall, the systemic, widespread and often superfluous use of pesticides in agricultural and pasture land over the past 60 years has negatively impacted most organisms, from insects to birds to bats . . ‘.

The students in ENT 518 honed in on the fact that the authors searched for the words ‘insect’ AND ‘decline’. Accordingly, there was a level of bias in their search procedures. Students seemed convinced that many insect groups are in decline, but were less willing to agree that the overall level of decline, rate of decline, and rate of extinction reported by the authors were accurate estimates. In addition, although students agree that pesticide use is likely to blame for insect declines, they would have been more convinced, if there were better data tying the two together.

Students then discussed how the science papers were translated into a narrative for the NY Times and Atlantic articles. We talked about the elements of a story, and how as scientists, we don’t worry about setting the scene, developing characters, or of conflict in a plot. But, many of us are also science communicators via our work in Extension or through other outreach efforts. If we can paint a picture that people can relate to ~ if we can get them to notice and to share their experience with noticing fewer insects in their yard or their town ~ will they care more about insect conservation?

One of the major reasons that we do the work that we do in the Garden Ecology Lab is because we believe that how we manage our gardens can truly make a difference to insect conservation. If we can take better notice of those ‘little things that run the world’ and share these experiences with our friends and family . . . will that make a difference? I believe that it will. In fact, it is the reason that I come to work, each and every day, excited to learn more about how we can make this world a better place through gardening.