Weeds May Be a Better Friend to Pollinating Insects Than We Assume
inverse.com
inverse.com
It's easy to do: Mow it once a year, in late summer, to prevent brush and trees from establishing. Remove the mowings, and never fertilize - or you'll have nothing but grass. It can take a few years and some helpful seeding, but the results are worth it.
Edited to add: since the wildflowers are native, you also never have to water.
It may be the case that a small amount of trees is beneficial overall for pollinators but if you’re managing an area as described then it takes a bit more work to plan for trees and mow around them.
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/hallerbos-forest-belgium-b...
There just aren't that many animals that thrive in a dense forest. Trees are hard to eat.
A natural forest - not the managed ones with just a couple of species - is absolutely teeming with life.
However, there is something in between nutritionally poor wildflower grassland and thick dense forest and I feel those hit the sweet spot.
Finally, I feel biodiversity is often given so much value that we don't even think about the amount of life anymore. It turns out that some ecologically managed grasslands do have a high number of species, but just not a lot of each one, whereas an open forest can harbor way more animals.
This makes sense: there is just not a lot to eat when you only have wildflowers on the menu.
- In a temperate forest, basically nothing eats canopy foliage. Maybe they did when we had mastodons and forest elephants, but we don't now. Trees grow, die, and get eaten by fungus.
- In grasslands, nearly 100% of the photosynthesized energy is available to megafauna.
Deer simply can't eat the bark of adult trees, or get to the leaves. Yes, some trees drop a lot of nuts, but it's nothing compared to what a prarie can support (aka, millions of bison).
Forests canopy is a very, very living biome for pollinators however. You’ll find birds, insects (and small mammals) in droves over the canopy but no “megafauna” indeed.
Francis Hallé work on forests, canopies and trees architecture is fascinating and insightful. He’s one of the creator of the “radeau des cimes”, an aerostat designed to study the canopy.
Bonus point: forest tends to retain water much better than grassland and therefore are less prone to drought.
you're gonna have to cite this claim
> Forests perform important buffering functions, such as cooling effects, the interception of precipitation, and water infiltration and retention.
https://www.fao.org/sustainable-forest-management/toolbox/mo...
do you have something i could read that supports this claim? it's my understanding that grasslands create more habitat and food compared to a closed canopy forest.
> Forests contain much of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, including insects, birds, and mammals
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/five-major...
You’ll find insects in the (rich) soil, on the tree barks, on they leafs and on the canopy; bird make nest and shelter on and inside trees, sometimes with twigs and others debris; mammals lives in burrow between the roots and climb trees and eats their fruits and foliage.
> contain much of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity
"much" that's like not science
Rainforests are as dense as they come and absolutely the peak of biodiversity on this planet (on land anyway, underwater is a whole other ballgame). They’re one of the only environments humans can survive in with literally nothing but knowledge of the plants and animals around you.
Many times, those animal habitats have certain habits (poop, eating, etc.) that encourage the ecosystem to thrive. For example, an animal might eat the seeds of a tree and then poop further away from the tree. When the undigested seed inside fecal matter is strategically placed away from the shade of competing trees, it's allowed to grow. But in order for that to even happen, we need what many consider weeds to create healthy fertile soil with a healthy water table (which will dry out and become lower if the ground is bare and dry). A water table that is lower than normal will make it difficult for all but the deepest root growing plants to thrive.
Many weeds will thrive in harsh conditions like that and "prep" the soil for these plants including trees.
And of course, this digresses from the point of the article somewhat. Pollinating insects need plants to pollinate in order to survive. Many weeds are great for this purpose and will allow important pollinators to thrive. Along with urbanization, the temptation is to clear away all these "undesirable" plants - but we're also hurting the pollinators in the process.
It's good to see some research pointing to evidence to what should be common knowledge. Maybe we can convince people to stop making those ridiculous barren lawns and let some native weeds grow [emphasis on native].
I grow weed like that on my balcony. Thyme, they call it.
Weed is just "plants you don't want".
Where I live, some of the top 5 weeds that feed the most insects (notably dandelion and a thistle), are also among the top annoying weeds in agriculture and vegetable gardening.
I'm slowly subbing in Yarrow, but initial observations are that the insects don't seem to like it as much. I need to spend some quality time just watching a plant to see.
Ok, gotta stop you right there, lol. Blackberries, particularly Himalayan Blackberries, in the PNW are a prime example of what makes something a noxious weed. They will decimate an ecosystem.
There are a lot of 'weeds' that are called such because they're 'not the plants you want' in a certain spot. But then there are weeds that actually threaten habitats. English Ivy is another example. What's native somewhere (this article appears to be centered in the UK) can be a terrible idea elsewhere.
Blackberries are delicious – but if you let them reproduce, they will absolutely take over and smother out all of the delicate balance that so many species rely on.
My recommendation is to keep it simple. If you have a monoculture lawn and you want to add some diversity, start with something like clover. You will see a TON of pollinators. Then pick edges where you can maintain wildflowers. In our area it would be things like Lupine and Douglas Meadowfoam. Different kinds of irises, etc. You can likely find a native seed mix for sale near you.
A lot of people have mentioned things like Yarrow or Queen Anne's Lace. Keep in mind that many of these plants closely resemble Poison Hemlock. This is another reason I like to keep things simple – I like to have a good sense of what's growing, so that a child or an animal doesn't accidentally pick and handle something toxic.
Source: I've restored and now maintain over 20 acres of Oak Woodland and Upland Prairie in collaboration with our local NRCS branch (our local Soil & Water district that's part of the USDA). I even seeded nearly 6 acres of it – an incredibly steep slope – entirely by hand.
"Weeds" species may be worth looking at as part of biomass carbon capture prior to processing for sequestration. That, at kelp. Unless we want to go down the path of 110 F summers and firestorms every 5 years.
Edit: My mom's house was built on fallow farmland with a strip of wild meadow behind it. The bug density is obviously high there, so I set up 2 large bug zappers (Flowtron BK-40D) producing a ~200 g pile of insects every night. The only problem is someone didn't like cleaning vs. being accosted by bugs including mosquitos carrying WNV. :/ I did my part by underscoring the risks and debilitating post-WNV symptoms.
Dear author, thank you for assuming what I assume. Quality journalism right there.
In my experience, insects like untreated nature the most. It pains me seeing how much "care" is being put into making things worse. Poisons, mowing, wasting water. It is only natural that such madness eventually leads to articles like this one.