How much is a bat worth?

Big Eared Townsend Fleddermouse.PD-USGov, exact author unknown

Who would think of putting a dollar value on a bat? Well, it turns out that some researchers have done just that. I am not talking about a baseball bat but about that creature of the night so loathed by some. We tend to associate bats with witches and demons rather than with crops.

Is there a reason for putting an economic value on a bat? The answer is: Yes. Bats feed on flying insects at night. Many of those insects are pests that damage our valuable crops. So it turns out that bats are valuable to farmers.

A group of scientists have been trying to estimate the numbers of insects bats eat and the possible impact on agriculture and forestry if bats stopped supplying this pest control. They published their conclusions in the scientific journal, Science. Through a number of complex calculations of pesticide application and crop losses they came up with a range between $3.7 billion and $53 billion a year in the United States alone. It is not possible to be more precise when considering so many variables. Anyway the numbers are impressive.

It is worth mentioning that these maligned creatures have other functions in addition to the pest control discussed in this study. They are pollinators of many night blooming flowers. Cacti, in particular, are dependent on bats for pollination. Many cacti of the West synchronize their blooming time with the migration of some species of bats. Try to imagine what the West would be like without cacti.

Bat pollinating Agave desmettiana. © Carlos Machado

 Another service, especially in the tropics is seed dispersal. Bats eat the fruits of many trees, such as fig trees and pass the seeds far from the mother trees. It would be impossible to put a monetary value on this function, but it is becoming apparent that bats are essential to reforestation in tropical regions.

Unfortunately, in recent times, bats are encountering serious problems. There is one disease in particular that is decimating the populations of bats in the United States. This fungal disease, called "white nose syndrome", weakens and kills large number of bats, especially during the winter. It is for this reason that the researchers decided to investigate how the loss of bats would affect agriculture. Even lacking more accurate numbers the results are alarming; the losses to crops and forestry could be very serious.

It is only recently that a cure for white nose syndrome has been found. A bacteria attacks the fungus that causes this illness. Infecting bats with this bacteria cures them from the illness. Steps are taken to restore the health of bat populations. It is still a long road to complete success and reports of the illness spreading to other caves and to other regions continue. Cautious optimism is in order.

The web of life is intricate and often we don’t know enough about all the threads that make this tapestry. This is another example of a creature whose value we fail to recognize. It took a threat to the welfare of bats, such as the white nose syndrome for the world to stand up and take notice. We are only now beginning to appreciate the value of the free services provided by these creatures: pollination, seed dispersal and pest control. We have to look at bats with renewed respect. Let us develop a kinder attitude towards our friends, the bats.

Bat house © Robert Lawton

Bat conservation
White nose syndrome cure
Seed dispersal by bats

Beginners Guide to Pollinators

The Amazon edition of Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors came out just in time for Pollinator Week, 2015.

Sample pages below:

This Way to the Restaurant.

Nectar guides © Beatriz Moisset

Nectar Guides

Most flowers want to make it easy for the visitor to find its way around. Thus, in addition to attracting pollinators with their colors and aromas, they guide their visitors in the right direction. This serves two purposes; it facilitates the task of the pollinator and enables the flower to have its pollen deposited where it is most needed.

Have you noticed the streaks of color radiating from the center of many blossoms? These are the nectar guides that tell the visitor: this is the way to the food. Violets and lupines are good examples. The variety of violets is amazing. We can count more than a hundred species and hybrids. Most of them are native, although a few have been introduced from Europe. As a footnote, it is worth mentioning that some violet species are the food plant of fritillary butterflies.

© Beatriz Moisset 

Don’t you find it rather surprising that the humble violet is the state flower of four states? It would be more correct to say violets, plural. Illinois did not attempt to specify which species, even after giving their flower the name of purple violet to distinguish it from yellow violets. New Jersey and Wisconsin chose the Viola sororia and Rhode Island, Viola palmata. Botanists and horticulturists pay attention to these things. However, legislators often ignore such details. This doesn't matter since all violets exemplify the nectar guides vividly.

Illinois: Purple Violet (Viola)

New Jersey: Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia)

Rhode Island: Violet (Viola palmata)

Wisconsin: Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia)

Texas bluebonnet © Jacopo Werther. Wikicommons

A slightly different type of nectar guides is present in bluebonnets (Lupinus). This Texas state flower includes all the species of bluebonnet that grow in that state. The guides become visible only when the flower opens and becomes receptive to pollinators. Bluebonnets belong to the pea family, Fabaceae, which is valuable to ecosystems because it enriches the soil by fixing nitrogen.

Texas: Texas Bluebonnet (Lupinus spp.)

Bull’s Eye

Some flowers use a different way to guide the pollinator to the desired place. It is called bull's eye. The color of the flower's center contrasts with the rest of the blossom. Several state flowers illustrate variations of this theme. Maryland's black-eyed Susan and Oklahoma's Indian blanket are fine examples. So are Florida's tickseed and Kansas' sunflower.

Sunflower © Beatriz Moisset 

Pollination researchers played a trick on visitors to these flowers to test the hypothesis that the bull's eye helped them find their way. They methodically pulled out all the petals of flowers of this type and glued them back in after reversing their position so that the darker part was in the outside. True enough, bees would land on the blossom, walk to the edge and stick their tongues out in search of nectar. They must have been mighty puzzled and annoyed at finding none.

Indian blanket. © Beatriz Moisset 

Some flowers, such as coreopsis, apparently lack this contrast. They appear uniformly yellow to our eyes. But bees see certain colors that escape us. They can see in the range of ultraviolet light, the so-called black light. The flowers, in turn, have a pattern that becomes visible only under this particular kind of light waves. The flower that appears uniformly yellow to us is seen by a bee as having a black center surrounded by a light halo.

Coreopsis. The bull's eye is visible only under ultraviolet light. © Beatriz Moisset 

Maryland, Florida and Kansas have state flowers with bull's eyes, black-eyed Susan, tickseed, and sunflower, respectively. Oklahoma is rather unusual in having not one but three types of flower symbols: the mistletoe as its floral emblem, the Oklahoma rose as its state flower and the Indian blanket, as its state wildflower. The latter has a conspicuous bull's eye.

Maryland: Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)

Florida (Wildflower): Tickseed (Coreopsis)

Kansas: Sunflower (Helianthus annuus)

Oklahoma (Wildflower): Indian Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella)

This article is about one of the many ways in which flowers increase the efficiency of the pollination process. In the next post we'll see examples of another strategy, frugality.

See: Pollinators of Official State Flowers

References

Black-eyedSusan under ultraviolet light

US National Arboretum. Trees and Flower

State Symbols, USA

Netstate. Official State Flowers

Dowden, Anne O. State Flowers. 1978

Cooper, Jason, The Rourke Guide to State Symbols. Flowers. 1942

List of articles
Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors

© Beatriz Moisset. 2015

Mass Appeal and Pollination

Some of the many visitors to goldenrod.  © Beatriz Moisset

Many flowers are not particularly selective; they welcome all kinds of visitors. They are wide open, easily accessible, thus many insects can reach the nectar and/or pollen regardless of whether their tongues are long or short. Such flowers provide a convenient standing platform to save their visitors the inconvenience of hovering over them. Their structure is simple so the pollinators don’t need to figure out how to open them in order to reach their rewards. Goldenrod is a fine example.

Monarch butterfly on goldenrod. © Beatriz Moisset

 I have spent countless happy hours observing goldenrods and photographing their numerous visitors. The one most common in my area is the Canada goldenrod. Several hundreds of species visit their flowers. Bear in mind that not all flower visitors qualify as pollinators. Some are not efficient at carrying pollen, or sit in one place for a long time and never make it to another plant. Such is the case of ambush bugs, whose only concern is to snare hapless pollinators to make a meal out of them. If you are interested on photographing and identifying pollinators this is a good place to start.

Metallic green bee. © Beatriz Moisset

 This plant blooms in the fall. It often gets blamed for allergies, but the real culprit is another plant that grows close by, sometimes intermingled with goldenrods, ragweed. Its flowers are inconspicuous because its pollen gets carried by the wind, not by officious pollinators. This is how it gets into our nostrils and causes our suffering. The much maligned goldenrods have larger, heavier and stickier grains of pollen that cannot get airborne and that require help from visitors.

Two states, Kentucky and Nebraska, have the goldenrod as their state flower. It is not clear which species of goldenrod Kentucky picked, but it is likely the Canada goldenrod (Solidago altissima). Nebraska’s choice is clearer, the giant goldenrod (Solidago gigantea). South Carolina, not satisfied with a state flower, also has a state wildflower. It is the Canada goldenrod. It is worth mentioning that Delaware has a state herb, the anise-scented or sweet goldenrod (Solidago odora).

Bumble bee on sunflower. © Beatriz Moisset

Coreopsis. © Beatriz Moisset

 Two other state flowers also have mass appeal. Like goldenrod, they are members of the daisy or aster family, easy to access by different kinds of visitors. They are Kansas’ sunflower (Helianthus annuus) and Maryland’s Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta). It is worth mentioning here that two states, Florida and Mississippi, chose the tickseed (Coreopsis spp.) as a state wildflower in addition to their official state flowers, the orange blossom and the magnolia, respectively.

Kentucky: Goldenrod

Nebraska: Goldenrod

South Carolina (wildflower): Goldenrod

Delaware (herb): Goldenrod

Kansas: Sunflower

Maryland: Black-eyed Susan

Florida (wildflower): Coreopsis

Mississippi (wildflower): Coreopsis

The indiscriminate pollination strategy represented by all these flowers has advantages and also disadvantages. They suffer no shortage of pollinators. If one species is doing poorly one year, as it often happens in the insect world, there are plenty more to fill in the deficiency. However, sometimes too much of a good thing can be bad. Some of these non-specialized pollinators may be visiting a variety of flowers instead of being faithful to just one species so they end up carrying the wrong kind of pollen in such cases.

Blossoms with such mass appeal give me the opportunity to introduce the reader to the main groups of pollinators. They are all well represented on these mass appeal flowers.

Andrenidae bee © Beatriz Moisset

Bumble bee. © Beatriz Moisset

 Let us start by getting acquainted with bees. More than 80 species have been seen on goldenrods. Some of them deserve mention. Bumble bees are larger than other bees, plump, dark with yellow or white stripes, and hairy. Metallic green bees are small and gorgeously colored. They may escape notice if one isn’t very observant; but it is easy to become captivated by their shiny aspect. Mason bees and leaf-cutting bees carry pollen on their underbelly, unlike most other bees that carry it on their hind legs. Most of them are dark, nearly black and about the size of honey bees or slightly smaller.

Wasp. © Beatriz Moisset

 Wasps are related to bees and sometimes people confuse them. Most wasps are less hairy than bees and have narrow waists. They raise their young on a diet of insects or spiders, instead of pollen and nectar as bees do. Adult wasps need nectar to fuel their flight. Thus, they are frequent flower visitors and accomplish some pollination.

Syrphid fly. © Beatriz Moisset

Syrphid fly. © Beatriz Moisset

Many types of flies, including mosquitoes and gnats visit flowers to feed on their nectar. Some are good pollinators. The Syrphid flies, also called flower flies, are among the most assiduous flower visitors. Most of them mimic bees or wasps and are frequently mistaken for them. However, they don’t sting and there is no reason to fear them.

Buckeye butterfly on goldenrod. © Beatriz Moisset

Pyrausta moth on sunflower. © Beatriz Moisset

Yellow collared scape moth on goldenrod. © Beatriz Moisset

 Butterflies, skippers and moths have extremely long tongues that they can use like drinking straws when sipping nectar. They favor long necked flowers and carry pollen from one to another.

Polished lady beetle on sunflower. © Beatriz Moisset

Soldier beetle on goldenrod. © Beatriz Moisset

Finally, beetles, although not well specialized for pollination, are also capable of doing so in special circumstances. We already mentioned magnolia pollination by beetles. They also visit other flowers and can do a reasonably good job in some cases.

In the following chapters we’ll see flowers that have chosen a different strategy. They are pickier or more selective. Some attract a handful of visitors; a few go to the extreme of having relationships with only one species of pollinators.

Pollinators of Official State Flowers

References

Goldenrods and Asters: Great PollinatorPlants for the Fall. Penn State Extension

List of articles
Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors

© Beatriz Moisset. 2015

Pollinators and vitamins

We need the vitamins provided by fruits

It is said that bees and other pollinators are responsible for one third of all our food. Whether this is exactly right I do not know; but a trip to the grocery store confirms that a substantial part of our food comes from plants that have been pollinated by insects rather than by the wind: most vegetables and fruits, drinks such as coffee and tea. We even have to include in this list beef, poultry and dairy products because farm animals feed partly on alfalfa or clover which have been pollinated by insects. Without pollinators we would be reduced to eating grains or cereals, potatoes, sea food and fish and very little else (and undernourished beef and poultry).

Tomato flowers

What is never mentioned but I find perhaps even more important than food quantity is quality. Many of our essential vitamins and antioxidants come to us courtesy of pollinators. Vegetables and fruits are loaded with vitamins such as beta carotene, vitamin C and a few others.

More evidence can be found in Contribution of Pollinator-Mediated Crops to Nutrients in the Human Food Supply. Elisabeth J. Eilers, Claire Kremen, Sarah Smith Greenleaf, Andrea K. Garber, Alexandra-Maria Klein. The researchers found that most of the vitamins A, C and E come from crops pollinated by insects. A large proportion of the minerals calcium, fluoride and iron in our diet are also dependent on animal pollination. Lycopene and some antioxidants, β-cryptoxanthin and β-tocopherol, are entirely dependent on insect pollination.

So, in summary, if it wasn’t for pollinators we wouldn’t be one third hungrier. Instead we would be one hundred per cent dead.

Vegetables are indispensable because of their vitamins

List of articles
Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors

© Beatriz Moisset. 2012

Before there were flowers: Wind Pollination

Pine tassels. © Beatriz Moisset

Pine cones. © Beatriz Moisset

Maine’s state flower is rather unusual because it is not a flower in the real sense. It is the white pine’s (Pinus strobus) tassel and cone. These are not flowers but serve the same function: the tassels produce pollen that has to arrive at the small, immature cones to produce seeds. Only then the cones can grow and reach maturity. Maine residents must be mighty proud of their pines and for very good reasons. It is a handsome tree of great value, and the tassels and cones, although not as colorful as most true flowers, are quite handsome. I am delighted at this peculiar choice because it serves to illustrate a significant point of pollination.

Long before there were any animal pollinators, only the wind performed this function. Wind pollinated plants have to produce vast quantities of pollen so that just a few grains can arrive to their destination; the immense majority never even come near the female cones and simply goes to waste. Pines, firs, spruce, and other conifers belong to an ancient lineage that appeared long before pollinators entered the scene. Thus they were and still are pollinated by the wind. Despite its inefficiency, this method works well enough when many plants of the same species grow relatively close to each other. This is why conifer forests are composed of only a small number of species. This is also why corn, another wind pollinated plant, needs at least several rows of plants to produce seeds.

Pollen dispersal by wind. © Beatriz Moisset

Getting back to the pine, both the tassel and the cone are well-adapted to their functions, increasing the chances that wind-carried pollen finds its destination. The tassels are placed higher on the tree. The cones are aerodynamically shaped to create small air whirlpools that direct the pollen grains toward the seeds. For millions of years, the land was dominated by these plants, along with even older ones, the seedless ones that reproduce by spores. The more ancient dinosaurs never saw a flower, nor did they care. The flower revolution was yet to come, and once started it would take the land by storm and spread to distant corners. Nowadays, wind pollinated conifers are more common than flowering plants only in harsh and cold environments near polar regions. Most plants everywhere else produce flowers.

The great advantage of flowers and of animal pollinated plants is that pollinators are more efficient than wind alone in transporting pollen to the intended target, thus even if individual plants are far apart, they still succeed at being pollinated. In fact, forests of tropical regions are made largely of blooming trees with so many different species packed in the same space that a pollinator has to travel some distance between members of the same species. So pollinators contribute to biodiversity, which in turn contributes to a more efficient way of using all available ecological resources.

Now I can get on with the story of pollinators of state flowers.

Also see: Pollinators of Official State Flowers 

References 
Maine: White pine tassel and cone 

List of articles
Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors

© Beatriz Moisset. 2015

The Great Impersonators, flower flies

Eristalis tenax, the drone fly, a honey bee mimic

© Beatriz Moisset

Why would one insect want to look like another? There must be some advantage in doing so. When it comes to flower flies the answer becomes apparent after a little observation.

These flies are found visiting flowers rather than garbage or dead meat like some of the flies you are most familiar with. They are rather pretty, with patterns of brown and yellow or black and yellow which easily remind you of bees. I have seen many a photographer deceived to the point of posting a picture of a flower fly claiming that it is a bee.

The goal of this remarkable imitation is not to fool photographers, of course, but rather hungry predators. Flower flies are delicious morsels of food that any bird would readily accept, but the fear of being stung by this bee mimic may lead him to think twice and skip this prey.

Some flower flies are about the size of a honey bee. The mimicry is so convincing that one of them is called the drone fly. Others are smaller and they may be imitating some of the lesser known and very abundant solitary bees. A few are long and thin and look like wasps, rather than bees.

Mallota bautias, a bumble bee mimic

© 2005 Beatriz Moisset

They can be distinguished from bees or wasps by the number of wings. Bees and wasps have four; flies have only two. The back wings have been reduced to little knobs, called halteres, used for balance. The halteres and the number of wings are hard to see when the insect is flitting about. Even when it rests on a flower, you continue to have trouble because a bee's front and back wings hook up appearing like a single unit.

Flower fly (left), bee (right)

Compare the size of the eyes

and the size and placement of the antennae

© Beatriz Moisset

Other differences are more obvious if you train your eye to see them. Flower flies have enormous eyes and tiny antennae that emerge from the front of the head, rather than higher up as in bees. Also flies are almost hairless and their legs are skinny when compared with those of bees. I hope all this helps you and saves you from embarrassing mistakes. I have seen business cards, article illustrations and even a book cover with a fly passing for a bee. So, if you still don't get them right, at least remember that you are in good company.

Toxomerus, mimics of small native bees

© Beatriz Moisset

In England, flower flies are called hover flies, an excellent description of their behavior. Some people in the US are adopting this name, so you may find either term in the growing literature on these interesting and useful insects.

A colorful flower fly

Helophilus, the sun lover

© Beatriz Moisset

These flies feed on nectar; sometimes they also eat pollen, especially the females who need this protein-rich food to produce eggs. This is why they spend so much time visiting flowers. Because of this habit they often end up carrying pollen from one blossom to another. They may not be as good pollinators as bees, but their role is not insignificant and deserves recognition. For instance, the so called drone fly is used to pollinate greenhouse sweet peppers.

Spilomyia sayi, a wasp mimic

© Beatriz Moisset

Let us applaud the bee impostors, flower flies or hover flies, for their role as pollinators.

For more on pollinators and other flower visitors read the e-book:
Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors

List of articles

© Beatriz Moisset. 2014