Tag Archives: Native Plants

2019 Native Plant Field Season Update

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I’m thrilled to announce that this summer I completed the third field season of my study. This is slightly bittersweet – while I’m excited that we are done with hot fieldwork, I will miss chasing bees around the farm and the view of Mt. Hood. I’m incredibly thankful for this third season of data, as it will help account for some of the temporal variation inherent in ecological studies. In fact, pollinator communities in particular tend to be highly variable both within and across field seasons. Having three seasons of data will hopefully allow us to identify more reliable patterns of pollinator visitation between my study plants.

Lots of lab work remains, as I’m tackling the insect samples that we collected with the bee vacuum. With the help of a dissecting scope, I’m attempting to identify the each specimen to at least the taxonomic level of family to get a sense of the broader insect communities associated with each flower species in my study. It will be several months before I can share this species-richness data, but in the meantime I have bee abundance data to share with you!

Aaron and Lucas in the native plant study site, in 2017. You can see the 1m by 1 m plot in the foreground by Aaron, a second one near Lucas, and a few more in the distance.

As a refresher, we performed timed pollinator observations at each plot. This consisted of observing each blooming plot for five minutes and counting all the insects that landed on open flowers. Bees were sorted to “morpho-type” (honey bee, bumblebee, green bee, and other native bee). Though this doesn’t give us species-level information on the floral visitors, it allows us to understand which plants attracted the most pollinators overall, and allows us to detect any patterns of visitation between honey bees, bumblebees, and solitary native bees. Below is a summary of some of the highlights.

2019 overall bee abundance by plant species:

  • Origanum vulgare, Lavendula intermedia, and Eschscolzia californica were top five bee plants in 2019, just as they were in 2018.
  • In 2019, Phacelia heterophylla and Solidago canadensis jump into the top five, while Nepeta cataria and Gilia capitata fall out of the top five. It should be noted that Nepeta was the sixth most attractive plant, with about the same visitation level as Solidago.
  • Again, similar to 2018, it appears that honey bee visitation was driving the high visitation rates of the popular exotic garden species (marked with a red asterisk), while native wildflowers were being visited more frequently by native bees.
  • I’ve included the 2017 and 2018 overall abundance graphs as well, for comparison. You can see that the overall abundance was higher in 2019 for the two most popular plants, at about ~25 bees per observation period!

2017 overall bee abundance by plant species:

2018 overall bee abundance by plant species:

Since honey bee visitation drove the high abundance of many of the top pollinator plants, I took honey bee visits out of the data set and made a new graph, to compare which plants were most attractive to native bees.

2019 native bee abundance by plant species:

As you can see above, honey bees are excluded from the analysis, the top five most popular plant species completely reshuffles.

I’ve included that 2017 and 2018 native bee abundance data below for comparison.

2017 native bee abundance by plant species:

2018 native bee abundance by plant species:

Please stay tuned for more updates on the bee species richness we collected in 2019, as well as data on the other insects (pests and natural enemies) that we collected!

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

PolliNation Podcast and Lab Update

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If you love bees, and you have not yet subscribed to PolliNation, you’re missing out! OSU Professor and PolliNation podcast host, Andony Melathopolous, does a wonderful job assembling a diverse array of guests to talk all things pollinator.

Aaron Anderson recently joined Andony on episode 94 of thePolliNation podcast, to talk about his research on native plants, different insect groups, and gardeners.

Aaron talks about the 100+ study plots that he manages (two of which you can see, below), as well as which plants were most attractive to bees (such as the California poppy, on the left) versus those that were more attractive to gardeners (such as the Oregon iris, on the right).

In other news, our lab group has been very busy. All of the 2017 and 2018 bees from our garden pollinator study have been identified to species (unless they are truly recalcitrant to being ID’d to the level of species).  Gabe has been working with Lincoln Best to identify the 2018 bees.  The 2017 were verified by Sara Kornbluth, and provided a great reference collection against which we could compare the 2018 bees. Gabe has been a short-time member of our lab group, but his expertise has been a huge benefit to our program. He leaves us at the end of April to start field work in the College of Forestry. After that, he heads to UC Davis to do his Ph.D.

For the garden bee project, we have >50 verified species of bees collected from Portland-area gardens, with a few more at the morpho-species level. This summer will be our final year of collections.

This summer will also be Aaron’s final year of field work at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center. This final year will help to resolve some of the differences we saw between his 2017 and 2018 data set.

After two years of amazing assistance in the lab and in the field, Isabella has started an independent research project on campus. She has planted some of Aaron’s study plants in gardens on campus, and is looking to see if bee visitation and bee communities markedly change, when you take them out of single-species plantings (like Aaron is studying) and put them into a garden setting.

Mykl is working to write up his urban soils data for publication. We are also hoping to do a side publication, comparing the soil types that we’re finding in home gardens, and seeing how they align with the types of soils that nesting bees prefer.

Lauren is writing up her capstone paper, and is preparing to defend this term. She surveyed gardeners to try to understand how well they can identify bees from other insects, and how well they knew bee-friendly plants from those that offered few or no nectar/pollen resources to bees.

Signe is taking the data that we are collecting, and working our findings into the online Master Gardener course. The best part of our work is being able to see gardeners put some of our research-based recommendations into action. Signe plays a huge role in translating our work for the general public.

Angelee is a relatively new member of the lab. She comes to us from the OSU STEM Leaders program. She’s learning lab protocols and lending a hand on just about every project. She has been a joy to work with.

Lucas has moved on from the lab, but still helps us with remote data-basing work, on occasion. He was a joy to work with, and I feel lucky that he stuck with us for a few years.

This fall, Jen will be joining our group as a new M.S. student. We will also be close to launching the first course in the online Urban Agriculture certificate program, which is being spear-headed by Mykl. We should also be pushing out a few more papers from our garden work, to join our first concept paper on the value of urban garden bees to urban and peri-urban agriculture.

 

Plant of the Week: Douglas Aster (Revisited)

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Image from: http://www.nwplants.com/

This entry is from Lucas Costner, an undergraduate horticulture major at Oregon State University.  It highlights one of the plants that Aaron Anderson is using in his research.

Original “Plant of the Week: Douglas Aster” post available here: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2017/11/07/plant-week-doulgas-aster/ 

 

Last November I took a look at a Pacific Northwest favorite, the Douglas aster (Symphyotrichum subspicatum (1)). What I didn’t know then was just how popular this species would be with the bees we had been sampling in the field. It turns out that while surveyed gardeners ranked Douglas aster 14 out of 27 in terms of attractiveness, based on the 2017 data it boasted the third highest number of bees (2). This means that it is the most attractive native perennial species for bees that we sampled, and the 2018 data shows this as well (3). Based on the gardeners’ ranking, however, which placed it in the bottom 50% of all the species we sampled, it also looks as though the Douglas aster is in need of some public relations help. 

It is my personal belief that it isn’t just the showiness of the blooms or the potential benefits to X, Y and Z that brings plants into our gardens, but rather the stories we tell about them. Familiarity after all is more than just recognition; it is also marked by appreciation and understanding. One of the stories we can tell through our work in the Garden Ecology Lab about Douglas aster is of its relationship with our native bees. As gardeners we are uniquely positioned to both benefit from and to be of service to these insects. 

Here are some of their “faces”: 

Long-horned Bees

Melissodes sp. 

The most common genus of bees collected from Douglas aster in the field, Melissodes are true summer and fall flyers, easily recognizable by their long antennae. These bees are solitary ground nesters, although they have been observed forming nesting aggregations in the soil (4). While we collected potentially five species of Melissodes in total, one species in particular, Melissodes microsticta, was especially common. Many Melissodes species are generalists, but can usually be found visiting members of the Asteraceae family (such as sunflowers and our Doulgas aster) because of their late season blooms.

 

Image from: https://odabeeguide.weebly.com/melissodes.html

Yellow-faced Bumblebee

Bombus vosnesenskii

The second most commonly collected visitor of Douglas aster, the yellow-faced bumblebee is really a remarkable native pollinator. While many native bees are considered solitary, bumble bees are social insects, with a queen and workers (4). Like non-native honeybees, they have been investigated for their potential as commercial pollinators, being used in greenhouse production (5). Isabella Messer wrote a post for the “Pollinator of the Week” series highlighting these ubiquitous bees that can be found here: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2017/08/29/pollinator-week-yellow-faced-bumble-bee/ 

 

Image from: https://odabeeguide.weebly.com/bombus-sp.html

Ligated Furrow Bee

Halictus ligatus

The third most commonly collected visitor of Douglas aster is the ligated furrow bee. Found throughout North America, Halictus ligatus is special amongst native pollinators (like the yellow-faced bumblebee) for its social nature (4). Sociality is rare amongst native bees, as it is in nature in general, but amongst the Halictus the situation is even more unique. This is because, unlike other social species, Halictus have been seen to switch back and forth between solitary and social behaviors over time as environmental conditions differ (4). Isabella wrote a post about these bees a while back for the “Pollinator of the Week” series that can be read here: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2018/04/30/pollinator-week-mining-bee/ 

 

Image from: https://odabeeguide.weebly.com/halictus.html

Virescent Green Metallic Bee

Agapostemon virescens

The fourth most commonly collected visitor of the Douglas aster is none other than my personal favorite, the virescent green metallic bee. These stunning bees are communal soil nesters and are members of the Halictidae family, cousins of the ligated furrow bee introduced above (4). I wrote a post about them for the “Pollinator of the Week” series last November that can be found here: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2017/11/13/pollinator-week-virescent-green-metallic-bee/ 

 

Image from: https://odabeeguide.weebly.com/agapostemon.html

In addition to these bees, we also collected striped-sweat bees (Agapostemon texanus/angelicus), brown-winged furrow bees (Halictus farinosus), metallic sweat bees (Lasioglossum sp.), and common little leaf-cutter bees (Megachile brevis). We also collected with a number of long-horned bees (Melissodes) that have yet to be identified to species. 

Walking the streets of Portland and seeing Douglas aster’s purple flowers still in bloom this late in October brings a smile to my face because it tells me that people are indeed planting this species. If only for its benefit to wildlife and pollinators in particular, that is still good news. As you may be able to tell from the information given above, we are still learning about these bee species while we are simultaneously working to save them — not just for future generations but for ourselves as well. Hopefully, by putting a “face” to the bees that visit and depend on these plants and our gardens, the bond that links us to them can be strengthened and our preference for them in our landscape enhanced. 

 

Sources: 

  1. Geraldine A. Allen 2012, Symphyotrichum subspicatum, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=88843, accessed on October 30, 2018.
  2. Langellotto, G. (2018, September 12). Do Gardeners Like the Same Flowers as Bees? [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2018/09/12/do-gardeners-like-the-same-flowers-as-bees/ 
  3. Anderson, A. (n.d.). First Look: Research Into Native Plants in the PNW Garden. Webinar. Retrieved from http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2018/10/23/webinar-on-willamette-valley-native-plants-and-pollinators/ 
  4. Wilson, J. S., & Messinger Carril, O. (2016). The Bees In Your Backyard. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  5. Dogterom, M. H., Matteoni, J. A., & Plowright, R. C. (1998). Pollination of Greenhouse Tomatoes by the North American Bombus vosnesenskii. Journal of Economic Entomology, 91(1), 71-75. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/91.1.71
  6. Oregon Department of Agriculture: Bee Pollinators of Oregon. (2016). Retrieved October 30, 2018, from https://odabeeguide.weebly.com 

Webinar on Willamette Valley Native Plants and Pollinators

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Aaron’s webinar on his Ph.D. research has been posted on YouTube.

He highlights some really interesting results from his 2017 and 2018 field seasons, including recommendations for what to plant, if you are interested in attracting native bees to your garden. I’ve asked him to write a blog post, summarizing the results to readers.

Plant of the Week: Sunflower

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This entry is from Lucas Costner, an undergraduate horticulture major at Oregon State University.  It highlights one of the plants that Aaron Anderson is using in his research.

As summer in the Pacific Northwest comes to a close, the sunflower (Helianthus annuus) stands out as a classic garden favorite deserving consideration. These commonly large, tall yellow flowers are a boon to wildlife, provide late summer height and interest in the garden, and have shared an interesting relationship with people wherever we have encountered them. 

While there are many individual species and varieties available on the market today, wild populations can be found across North America, and most boast popularity with insect pollinators and other wildlife, including birds (1, 3). In the field, Aaron is using the wild-type and, while you certainly don’t have to do the same, varieties marked as “pollenless” or double-petaled should be avoided when planting for wildlife (3). Sunflowers seeds are well-known for their attractiveness to birds, but the flowers also provide forage to a diverse suite of insects, including bees, wasps, butterflies, and even beetles (2, 3). Four genera of native bee species (Diadasia, Eucera, Melissodes, and Svastra) host members that are sunflower specialists, and the giant leafcutter bee (Megachile pugnata) has even been studied as a managed pollinator for agricultural production of the crop (3). 

The giant leafcutter bee (Megachile pugnata).  Photo Credit: Thomas Shahan. Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Originally domesticated in eastern North America, the sunflower is the only native seed oil plant (1). Its use among North America’s indigenous peoples is well-documented and varied, having been used for everything from food to dye to medicine (2). The sunflower was introduced to Europe in the 16th century, where it first found its place in gardens, but it wasn’t until the 1800s in Russia that our modern ideas of giant, towering sunflowers came to be (1). This is because early American colonists did not cultivate sunflowers, and the seeds were reintroduced from Russia to the United States in 1893 (2). The Russians bred sunflowers that could produce up to 1000 seeds each for oil production, since the Russian Orthodox Church had forbidden the use of other cooking oils during the Lenten season (1). Therefore, in comparison with many common varieties available, and despite 3,000 years of domestication by indigenous peoples in North America, the wild-type appears quite diminutive (2). 

No matter the variety, gardeners should be aware that sunflowers are annual flowers that will need replanting every spring (although allowing squirrels to do the planting could be a fun experiment). They prefer well-draining soil and can reach rather impressive heights depending on the exact species and type. Additionally, the stems can become woody and may require some work removing at the end of the season. 

Sources cited: 

  1. Simpson, B. B., & Connor, M. (2014). Plants in Our World: Economic Botany (4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
  2. Stevens, M. (2006, June 7). Plant Guide: Annual Sunflower [PDF]. Davis: USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center.
  3. The Xerxes Society. (2011). Attracting Native Pollinators. North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing.

Do Gardeners Like the Same Flowers as Bees?

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In 2017 and 2018, Aaron and Lucas took weekly counts of bees on their native plant plots. Aaron has summarized the data for 2017 (below) according to bee morpho-type. The morphotype categories are the same general categories that have been used by other researchers: bumblebee, honey bee, green bee, small bee, and big bee. These major bee categories are fairly easy to distinguish from one another in the field. Although, Aaron and I talked quite a bit about whether or not we should combine big bees and small bees into a new category: other bees. When does a small bee become a big bee? We had a general sense that a large Megachile rotundata would be a big bee, and a small Ceratina sp. would be a small bee. But, what about a smaller Megachile species? Is that big bee or a small bee? There is no clear answer.

Aaron and Lucas kept records of big bees vs small bees, as best as they could, but in the end, we might collapse all of that data into an ‘other bee’ category.Aaron recently surveyed gardeners, to ask their opinion on the aesthetics of his study plants. A quick look at the results suggests that gardeners and bees might be attracted to different flowering plants. While Gilia capitata was the most visited plant in Aaron’s study plots, it was ranked 6th most attractive (out of 27 plants) by gardeners. The story gets worse for Madia elegans (2nd with bees, 20th with gardeners), Aster subspicatus (3rd with bees, 14th with gardeners), and Solidago candensis (4th with bees, 23rd with gardeners).

Could it be that bees and gardeners are truly attracted to different types of flowering plants? Or could it be that if gardeners knew about the benefits of these Willamette Valley natives, that they might see a new kind of beauty in these plants?

 

First Bee List from Native Plant Study

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We are so lucky that Lincoln Best has been in Oregon, supporting the work of the Oregon Bee Atlas. Linc was kind enough to take a look at Aaron’s bees, before going back to Canada. Aaron is currently taking a bit of time off, following his wedding this past weekend (Congratulations Aaron and Maura!). In everyone’s absence, I’m chomping at the bit to see what bees were identified from Aaron’s study of Willamette Valley native plants. So ~ for your reading pleasure, here is a preliminary list of bees collected from Aaron’s plant plots.

Aaron and Lucas in the native plant study site. You can see the 1m by 1 m plot in the foreground by Aaron, a second one near Lucas, and a few more in the distance.

A few things to note about this list:

  1. I give no mention of abundance of each bee species. Some specimens were caught many, many times off of a flowering plant species. Others were rare, and only caught once.
  2. This list is not all-inclusive. It’s Labor Day. I’m working. I got excited about the bees, and wanted to share. But, I am not carefully going through every small label.
  3. Some bees were only found on one or two flowering plant species ~ even though Aaron’s plots are all in the same 3 acre field (1X1m plots, with each plot separated from every other plot by 6 m).
  4. Yellow-faced bumblebees were collected off of most plants ~ so I am not listing them, below. I also did not look at the honey-bee plant associations.
  5. Linc dissected male genitalia (yes ~ that is how you need to ID some bees to species), and found FOUR Bombus calignosus (all associated with lavender)~ a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List.
  6. We also have Bombus fervidus, another species on the IUCN Red List (Vulnerable) on lavender, Salvia, and Gilia.

I’ll leave it to Aaron to make a rigorous accounting of bee-flower associations. But for now . . . on this holiday weekend, I was too excited to not take a peek and share initial findings with all o fyou.

Nepeta (non-native comparitor)

Oregano (non-native comparitor)

Salvia (non-native comparitor)

Lavender (non-native comparitor)

Phacelia (native)

Clarkia (native)

Goldenrod (native)

California Poppy (native)

Doug Aster (native)

Oregon Iris (native)

Gilia capitata (native)

Oregon Sunshine

Madia (native)

Sidalcia (native)

Yarrow (native)

Pearly Everlasting (native)

Plant of the Week: Common Yarrow

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This entry is from Lucas Costner, an undergraduate horticulture major at Oregon State University.  It highlights one of the plants that Aaron Anderson is using in his research.

Common Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) isn’t just common — it’s nearly ubiquitous throughout the Pacific Northwest. Found in lawns, along roadsides, in fields and gardens, it’s easy to allow yarrow’s abundance to overshadow its potential in the landscape, its benefit to wildlife, and its historical value as a medicinal plant. 

A perennial native across the temperate Northern Hemisphere, yarrow has a long history of human association (1, 2). Its scientific name, Achillea, comes from the ancient Greek hero Achilles, who used the plant to help dress battle wounds (2). Similarly, in the Northwest, indigenous peoples made poultices and teas from the plant (2). 

In the landscape, it may be helpful for gardeners to consider mimicking natural distribution patterns by massing yarrow into larger groups of plants (3). Yarrow grows densely — emerging up to three feet in height and spreading from a fibrous horizontal root system (1). White, sometimes pink, ray flowers appear at the end of stems in nearly flat inflorescences (2). These plants are very drought tolerant and appear naturally in disturbed areas, meaning they will thrive in the average garden (1). 

As a member of the Asteraceae family along with goldenrod and Douglas aster, yarrow’s bountiful floral display offers excellent forage for generalist pollinator species throughout the summer months and is a common choice for butterfly gardens (1). In addition to its floral resources, the foliage is noted as a source of food and habitat to many species of butterfly and moth caterpillars (4). 

References: 

1. Hurteau, M. D. (2013, November 13). Common Yarrow [PDF]. USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center.

2. Mathews, D. (2016). Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains. Portland, OR: Timber Press.

3. Rainer, T., & West, C. (2015). Planting in a Post Wild World. Portland, OR: Timber Press.

4. Robinson, G. S., P. R. Ackery, I. J. Kitching, G. W. Beccaloni & L. M. Hernández, 2010. HOSTS – A Database of the World’s Lepidopteran Hostplants. Natural History Museum, London. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosts. (Accessed: 29 Aug. 2018).

Upcoming Webinars Feature Garden Ecology Lab Research

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If you are interested in hearing more about our research, please consider sitting in on one of the upcoming webinars we are presenting, as part of the Advanced Training Series for Master Gardeners, organized by OSU Extension Faculty Member, Brooke Edmunds. Gail will be speaking on August 30th, about garden bees. Aaron will be speaking on October 22 on his native plant research. There is also a presentation in November by Melodie Putnam (not in our lab group ~ but a great speaker) on plant galls.

Webinars qualify for Master Gardener continuing education units in Oregon. The webinars are free, but you must pre-register. After the presentations, all webinar recordings are posted on Brooke’s YouTube channel.

More details, and link to the registration page, can be found, below.

Thursday 8/30 at 11am PT

The latest research on bees in the garden: an update from the OSU Garden Ecology Lab.

Speaker: Dr. Gail Langellotto (OSU)

 https://learn.extension.org/events/3443

Monday 10/22 at 11am PT

‘First Look’: OSU Research on Native Plants in the PNW Garden

Speaker: Aaron Anderson (OSU graduate student)

https://learn.extension.org/events/3494

Monday 11/19 at 11am PT

The Weird and Wonderful World of Plant Galls

Melodie Putnam (OSU Plant Clinic)

https://learn.extension.org/events/3493

Missed a webinar? 

Catch up with the 2018 series here: https://tinyurl.com/yczwxjvr (opens in YouTube)