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July 31, 2007
Plant a Wasp Garden!
It seems that everyone that plants flowers thinks about the butterflies, so I usually see "Butterfly Garden" whenever a gardener has flowering plants like Echinacea, Mountain-mint, bone-set, carrot, etc. However, what I see most often at the flowers in my yard and elsewhere are bees and wasps at the flowers. The Butterfly Bush in my yard is most attractive to butterflies and hummingbird sphinx moths, and is the most reliable attractant for Lepidoptera. However, any flowers with shallow corollas such as members of the daisy family, carrot family, and mints, will attract a great many bees and wasps, as well as flies. I think they are by far, a lot more interesting to watch than the butterflies that are infrequent visitors.
A Philanthus wasp drinks nectar from Mountain Mint at the flower garden in front of the Ruthven Museum.
These smaller insects are obviously more of a challenge to observe than butterflies, but they are less wary of people, and you can approach them much more closely. For the most part, the wasps at the flowers are deriving their energy source from the nectar. Although many of them are predators, they use the insects that they paralyze (if they are sphecid wasps, that is) as food for their offspring, not themselves. If you want a good read about the lives of wasps and bees, I highly recommend the book by the late Howard Evans, called Wasp Farm. I avidly read the books by Howard Evans when I was an undergraduate, and his writings influenced the direction of my graduate work on solitary wasps, as well as the many papers that I published on their behavior and distribution. The wonderful thing about observing these wasps is that if you find where they are digging their nests, you will be treated to an amazing show of a variety of insect behaviors, including male lekking, attacks by parasitic flies, female nest recognitions, etc. My friend Julie has taken to observing the giant Cicada Killers at her workplace, and has a nice post on her blog.
Isodontia elegans on parsley flowers.
Megachile on Rudbeckia flower.
Potter wasp (Eumenes) on mountain mint.
So, if you want to see a lot of insect action, plant a wasp garden. Species of perennials that are recommended are:
Mountain Mint, Queen-Anne's Lace, Parsely, Golden Alexanders, Globe Thistle, Butterfly Weed, Swamp Milkweed, Boneset, Rudbeckia, Rattle Snake Master (Eryngium), Chives, Lemon Balm, Bee-balm, and Yarrow. More information on plants is here.
Posted by mfobrien at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2007
Gypsy Moth
I was away on vacation last week, and on our way to New York State, we drove across Pennsylvania on I-80. Although I have lived in Michigan for 26 years, I grew up in northern NY, at the edge of the Adirondacks. So, as we traveled across PA, the change from flatland Michigan (and Ohio) to scenic vistas with mountains and valleys was a welcome change. However, one aspect of the view was troubling -- quite a few spots had almost barren hillsides, caused by some defoliator. I guessed Gypsy Moth, and when we stopped at a rest area in central PA, I was amazed to see thousands of gypsy moths and egg masses on just a few trees.
We rarely have significant outbreaks of Gypsy Moth (Limantria dispar) in Michigan for a couple of reasons which I’ll describe later. Pennsylvania though, seems to have routine outbreaks, especially in the mountainous areas. Gypsy Moth females cannot really fly, so dispersal has to come in other ways. In the US, the two main methods are human-aided and wind-aided. Human-aided dispersal comes about when people travel from outbreak areas to other places, and unwittingly carry egg masses on items such as firewood, nursery stock, RVs, boat trailers, etc. It’s not so much of a biological problem as it is a social problem. If people are aware of this, then most of the time it is easy to spot the egg masses and remove them.
Wind-borne dispersal is a phenomenon more common to the hilly terrain of the eastern US, not flat Michigan. As the larvae hatch and make their way up the trees, they can be blown aloft and land on the next mountain ridge downwind. Therefore, populations can be more mobile than here in Michigan. That’s one of the reasons that these outbreaks can occur in places like Pennsylvania.
Michigan has also experienced a few outbreaks over the years, but they tend to stay localized and more recently, they have become quite the rarity. One of the reasons for the lower numbers in Michigan may be due to the fungus that attacks the larvae and kills them. Entomophaga maimaiga has become established in Michigan, and has severely depleted the populations in SE Michigan. So, the fungus and perhaps the lack of interesting topography here has aided in reducing the Gypsy Moth to local and occasional pest status.
Posted by mfobrien at 03:57 PM | Comments (0)
July 10, 2007
Bioblitzed!
If you read my Michigan Odonotes blog, you can read all about the Bioblitz that was held at the UM Biological Station in Douglas Lake, MI. It's about 270 miles N of Ann Arbor, south of the Mackinac Bridge. The station (UMBS) hosted its first bioblitz on July 5-7, with array of resident and invited people to come and see what species of flora and fauna are there. Adrienne and I had a great time talking with other biologists, and it reminded me somewhat of my days at Cranberry Lake in the Adirondacks, where I went for MY summer bio station experience while attending SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in the late 1970s.
sorting moths - Dave Wagner (L)and Brian Scholtens (R)
Brian Scholtens organized the UMBS bioblitz, and Dave Wagner from Storrs, CT was the featured speaker on two nights. Dave's enthusiasm for his work on caterpillars was evident, and his book on the caterpillars of Eastern NA is a must-have. Dave and Brian have both been involved with bioblitzes elsewhere, and for a first-time event at UMBS, it went very well. My main duty was to work on the Odonata, and we ended up with 31 species for the Bioblitz period. That's a far cry from an estimated 400+ species of moths that Brian and Dave collected, but it represents nearly half of the 68 Odonata species that I know to occur there.
Progomphus obscurus, the common sanddragon.
One big surprise was that Adrienne collected a female Megachile sculpturata (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae), the giant resin-bee, which originated in Asia. That was a great catch, as I didn't know that the bee was in Michigan. We also saw Polistes dominulus there, which means that species has really moved northward.
Bioblitzes are a great way to get organismal biologists together for a weekend, doing the things that we like to do -- go out in the field.
Posted by mfobrien at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2007
Nature's Fireworks - Fireflies
As we approach the annual 4th of July celebration, the warm evenings of July bring forth a longer-lasting light display. As I was sitting on my porch last night, I watched dozens of fireflies in my front yard take to the air and provide a light display. The way they can hover in a spot and give off their bioluminescent light is just amazing. I remember catching them in jars when I was a kid and watching them up close. If an insect can typify a a July evening in the country, then this is the one (or at least one of several common species).
Fireflies aren't flies, but beetles in the family Lampyridae. Rather than reiterate what is already on the web, I'll provide links to some very useful and interesting sites on fireflies. The Firefly Files is a really nice website with lots of useful facts and photos of fireflies. The Minnesota DNR has a fact page. Bioluminescence is an amazing phenomenon, and in nature, it os more common in deep-sea dwelling animals. People often think that the stuff inside light sticks is the same as for fireflies, but it is not! Read about how light sticks work here.
Posted by mfobrien at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)