Creature: Pollinators

Diverse pollinators such as bees, butterflies, bats, and wind-pollinating plants, playing a critical role in food production and plant biodiversity.

Featured Creature: Yucca

What plant can also be used as a soap,
but without a certain insect, simply could not cope? 

Yucca!

Soapweed yucca (Wikimedia Commons by James St. John) 

On a dreary, gray day at school, as I hurried from one academic building to another, I spotted a patch of spiky green shrubs, sticking out like a sore thumb. These plants gave me pause because though they were a familiar sight, I had last seen them in the high desert of Mancos, Colorado, a very different setting than my New England college campus, some 3,000 miles away. How did they get here? I wondered, and how are they thriving in an environment so different from the one I had last seen them in? 

There are about 30 species of yucca, most of which are native to North and Central America. The yucca that I recognized on my campus walk was soapweed yucca, also known as great plains yucca. Soapweed yucca is a shrub with narrow leaves, almost knife-like in their sharpness, which can grow up to 3 feet tall. Soapweed yucca grows in the dry, rocky soils of short grass prairies and desert grasslands and thrives in more arid biomes. Still, it can be found across the United States; the yucca’s thick, rhizomatous roots (horizontal underground stems that send out both shoots and roots) allow the plant to thrive in many environments with different soils, including sand. It is a hardy plant, and can tolerate cold and moderate wetness, hence its ability to survive on my college campus in the Northeastern United States.

Soapweed yucca (Pixabay)

The shrub received its name, soapweed, due to the saponin contained in its roots. Saponin is a naturally occurring substance in plants that foams upon contact with water, creating a natural soap, which is something that I wish I had known as I camped feet away from the yucca in Colorado. In addition to its cleansing properties, the saponin has a strong bitter taste, and is used by plants, such as the yucca, as a deterrent against hungry insects and animals alike. For humans however, these characteristics make it an attractive partner. These saponin can be turned into sudsy cleansing soap. This process has been used by indigenous peoples for hundreds of years, and is modeled in the video below.

The flower and root of the yucca plant have been used as a nutritional, and tasty snack for centuries. As we learned earlier, the roots and flowers of yucca contain saponin, which, while offering medicinal and hygiene benefits, can be toxic or harmful if not properly prepared for consumption. When consumed, the saponin has a bitter taste, and can cause a burning sensation in the throat. However, if properly prepared, the yucca flower and root can be used in a variety of different recipes. The following video shows the proper way to prepare, and eat, yucca flowers. 

In addition to eating the flowers of the yucca plant, the root holds incredible nutritional and medicinal benefit. Roots were used in a salve for sores and rubbed on the body to treat skin diseases. The sword shaped leaves of the yucca plant could also be split into long strips to be weaved into useful cords. Due to the strong fibers contained in the leaves, yucca could be stripped into thread to fashion baskets, fishing nets, and clothing. 

The Yucca Moth 

During the spring months, from the center of mature soapweed yucca blooms a beautiful stalk of cream colored flowers. At the same time as the yucca flower blooms, an insect called the yucca moth emerges from its cocoon. The yucca moth is small, and white in color, closely resembling a petal of the yucca flower, which allows the insect to blend in with the blossoms. There is a powerful symbiotic relationship between the yucca plant, and the yucca moth, meaning that two organisms have a long term, mutually beneficial biological relationship. 

Yucca moths in flowers
(WikiCommons by Judy Gallager)

After breaking out of their cocoons, the male and female yucca moths find their way to the blossoms of the yucca flower, where they mate. The female yucca moth then gathers pollen from the yucca, flying to different plants which ensures the cross pollination of the plant.  She shapes the pollen into a large lump, which she holds underneath her chin as she travels, searching for the proper flower to lay her eggs. This ball of pollen can reach up to three times the size of her head! Once located, she lays her eggs in the ovary of the yucca’s flower. She then deposits her collection of pollen onto the stigma of the flower, pollinating the yucca, which will now produce fruit and seeds for her larvae to feed off of. The larvae mature before they can
consume all of the yucca’s viable seeds, allowing
the yucca to continue to reproduce. 

Flowering yucca
(pixabay by Thanasis Papazacharias) 

Leaving her larvae, the eggs grow for a few weeks on their own. Once they reach the right size, the larvae drops from the yucca flowers to the ground, where it burrows underground and forms its cocoon. The lifespan of a yucca moth is only about a year, and the majority of that time is spent in the pupal, or cocoon stage, under the earth. Once an adult moth has mated, it marks the end of their brief life as adult moths. Once underground, the insect will remain in this cocoon in a dormant state until next spring, when the yucca flower begins to blossom, and the cycle continues. 

The yucca moth is the primary pollinator of yucca plants, and its larvae depend on yucca seeds as a key food source. While the relationship is highly specialized, some yucca species can self-pollinate to a limited extent, and other insects, such as bees, may occasionally contribute to pollination. Without one, the other simply would certainly struggle to survive as they do today. Although yucca moths are native to the southwest areas of North America, as yuccas have expanded across the country, some species of yucca moths have also spread, although their distribution remains closely tied to the presence of their specific yucca host plants.

Perhaps the soapweed yucca that I stumbled across in New England autumn already had cocoons of yucca moths, lying hidden and dormant beneath my feet. 

Helena Venzke-Kondo is a student at Smith College pursuing psychology, education, and environmental studies. She is particularly interested in conversation psychology and the reciprocal relationship between people and nature. Helena is passionate about understanding how communities are impacted by climate change and what motivates people towards environmental action. In her free time, she loves to crochet, garden, drink tea, and tend to her houseplants. 

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: Lavender

What’s usually purple, but sometimes pink,
and in the summer you might want it in a drink?

Lavender! (Lavandula)

(Image Credit: edededen via iNaturalist)

Already baking in the high desert heat, I rolled up a gravel driveway past yucca and prickly pear cacti to Mesa Verde Lavender, the farm in Mancos, Colorado, where I was to spend my summer living and working. I didn’t know much about the plant other than that it smelled good, tasted a little soapy, and that I was potentially allergic to it (luckily, I was wrong about this one). 

Over the next three months, I would learn a lot about the lavender, how to plant it, care for it, and harvest it. On a lazy mid-June day, when the first buds of the flower had begun to blossom, the most mature field was full of flowers with tiny white buds springing from their stems. It was as if all of the color had been leached from their little buds. That is how I stumbled upon the existence of pink lavender, the Miss Katherine cultivar.

Miss Katherine in Colorado (Photo by Author)

Miss Katherine was the first variety to bloom on the farm, with a blooming period from early June to late August.

Lavender is a genus (Lavandula) of flowering plants known for its beauty and its fragrant oils. Lavender plants typically have long, slender stems with narrow leaves, and their flowers are generally in shades of purple, blue, or violet—though when I first laid eyes on them in Colorado, they were a dusty white. And while they certainly taste different, Lavender is in great aromatic company as part of the mint family (Lamiaceae), sharing several biological traits with its “fresh” relative like square stems and opposite leaves. 

Originating in the Mediterranean, Lavender prefers hot sunshine and more alkaline, or basic, soils (less acidic clay soils with a higher pH), making them strong and hardy plants, perfect for the high altitude desert farm in Colorado where I worked with them.

(Image Credit: Nikolett Emmert via Pexels)

Bees?

Trendy chefs and mixologists aren’t the only ones working lavender into their meals. The plant’s flowers are rich in nectar and pollen, making them highly attractive to pollinators like bees and butterflies too. These pollinators are critical allies in the lavender’s reproductive process, transferring pollen between flowers to facilitate fertilization. Lavender flowers typically bloom during the summer, providing an important food source for pollinators and other feasting friends. 

Now, lavender plants can self-pollinate. But they thrive with the help of birds, bees, the wind, and others to spread their pollen to other, genetically diverse, lavender. And although many insects interact with lavender, none do it quite like bees. Interestingly, not all bees contribute equally; some species engage in what is known as “nectar robbing,” or extracting nectar without transferring pollen. But not the bumblebee. These highly efficient pollinators use their long tongues to access nectar more effectively, enabling them to forage lavender three times faster than honeybees. That’s good news for the bee. And their fuzzy bodies collect and transfer pollen efficiently between flowers, promoting successful cross-pollination. That’s good news for the lavender. 

There’s no denying it – lavender has a delicate aura about it. It’s decorative. It embellishes carefully plated meals. It’s a favorite of nearly every kind of scented product you can think of. But don’t let that image fool you. It’s one tough cookie, and this was something that really fascinated me when I dug into learning about the plant. I see it a little differently now. Lavender has evolved several adaptations that allow it to thrive in harsher environments. It is drought-resistant and capable of surviving in well-drained soils with low fertility. The plant’s deep, robust root system enables it to pull moisture from the soil, even in periods of low rainfall. It’s this ability to endure dry conditions that makes lavender well-suited for Mediterranean climates, where hot, dry summers are kind of the norm. 

(Photo by Irina Iriser via Pexels)

Essential Oils

During the Colorado harvest, my fingers grew stickier with each strike of the scythe against the plant’s stems. A delicious-smelling substance that oozing from within the lavender and onto my hands. This was the essential oil. 

Essential oils are concentrated compounds extracted from plants, and they tend to capture each plant’s unique scent and natural chemical properties. They’re commercially valuable in numerous human applications, including aromatherapy, skincare, and medicinal and culinary uses.

Miss Katherine hanging to dry (photo by author)

Essential oil is present in all parts of the lavender plant, including the leaves, buds, and stems (hence my sticky hands).

The Miss Katherine lavender is the most commonly used lavender variety for essential oil production, due to its low camphor content. Camphor is a naturally occurring compound in essential oils with a bitter taste and strong smell—not something you’d want on your plant or in your candle. Other lavender varieties, such as Lavandula stoechas and Lavandula lanata, have higher camphor levels, making them better suited for natural bug repellents and other less cosmetic or edible applications.

Scientists still don’t fully understand the natural purpose of essential oils in plants. Some oils are thought to be byproducts of metabolic processes, while others could play a role in defense against disease and predators. Lavender plants are thought to be allelopathic—capable of releasing chemicals that inhibit the growth of surrounding plants. This can help lavender outcompete invasive species. But on the flip side, planting lavender in an environment where it doesn’t belong can lead to inhibition of native plants and, ultimately, a loss of biodiversity. 

Lavender distilling (photo by author) 

After the harvest, bundles of lavender are hung upside down to dry for a couple days, after which the buds are stripped from the stems, contained in jars, and sent out to market. At Mesa Verde Lavender, the farm delivered a mixture of Miss Katherine, Provance, and Royal Velvet to a local ice cream shop, where the lavender was whipped into delicious gourmet ice cream and served to the community of Durango, Colorado.  

Helena Venzke-Kondo is a student at Smith College pursuing psychology, education, and environmental studies. She is particularly interested in conversation psychology and the reciprocal relationship between people and nature. Helena is passionate about understanding how communities are impacted by climate change and what motivates people towards environmental action. In her free time, she loves to crochet, garden, drink tea, and tend to her houseplants. 

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: Leafcutter Bee

What creature carves out little pieces of tree leaves to build its nest inside hollow stems?

The Leafcutter Bee!

Bernhard Plank – SiLencer (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Known scientifically as Megachile (genus), leafcutter bees account for 1,500 of the world’s 20,000 bee species. I first noticed the work of leafcutter bees in my own backyard two years ago. First, you notice the “leaf damage” of the leafcutter bee. 

Here is the “leaf damage” on a pin oak seedling. 

The leaf damage takes the form of neat little curves. I recognized these neat little curves from having perused Bees: An Identification and Native Plant Foraging Guide, by Heather Holm, an author whose work I highly recommend. 

In June of this year, I was fortunate enough to capture a leafcutter bee on video doing her work. I’ll show you the video below, but first … 

How can we coexist with critters who are “harming” our plants?

It is said, “If nothing is eating your garden, then your garden is not part of the ecosystem.” If you want your garden to be part of the ecosystem, then some of it will become food for other critters. Some of my leaves will become food for leafcutter bees. But then the leafcutter bees will pollinate my wildflowers and my vegetables, making it possible for them to bear seed and fruit. I am happy to make this trade-off, plus I want my garden to feed all of the living species, not just us humans.

How do leafcutter bees differ from honeybees?

Honeybees are the most famous bees. And who doesn’t like honey? But honeybees are only one species out of 20,000 worldwide.  

Honeybees are social. So they live cooperatively in hives. But most bees are solitary, including leafcutter bees. They interact only in mating. And then they make their nests and lay their eggs in a nest that could be in the ground, or in a rotting tree or in the hollow stem of a dead wildflower.

The North American continent is home to 150 of the world’s 1,500 species of leafcutter bees. Honeybees originate from Europe; they are not native to North America. 

An “unarmed leafcutting bee” from my backyard

Here is a video of an “unarmed leafcutter bee” in my backyard, cutting the leaf off a pin oak seedling. This female uses her strong mandibles (jaws) to carve out a piece of a pin oak leaf to build her nest. Notice how quickly and efficiently she does this work.

How do I know this is a female? Because only the females build nests. The males die shortly after mating. 

As soon as she is done cutting off the piece of leaf, she carries it back to the nest. The female nibbles the edges of the leaves so they’ll be pulpy and stick together to provide the structure for the nest.

Where is she building a nest? 

She may build her nest in the hollow stem of a dead wildflower stalk, such as ironweed or goldenrod. She may build her nest in a dead tree. (Forest ecologists say that a dead tree is at least as valuable as a live tree, because so many critters make their nests in them.) Or she may build it in the ground. Nests also include cavities in rocks and abandoned mud dauber nests (Holm, 2017).

Here is the nest of a ground-nesting bee. In this case, it may or may not be a leafcutter bee.

If we leave bare spots on the ground, then this becomes a potential nesting site for ground nesting bees, including some leafcutter bees.

What purposes do the leaves serve?

Leaves prevent desiccation (drying out) of the food supply. The leaves typically include antimicrobial properties, preventing the nest from being infected.

Inside a nest, cells are arranged in a single long column. The female constructs each cell with leaf pieces, placing an egg along with pollen mixed with nectar, enough food for the bee to grow to adulthood, before leaving the nest.

In the fall, the larvae hatches from the egg, eats the nectar and pollen, and gains enough energy to grow through several stages, called instars. But it does not yet leave the nest. In the spring, the larvae pupates and becomes an adult, finally crawling out of the nest.

In the eastern U.S., common nesting materials include rose, ash, redbud and St. John’s wort. See below for photos from my home landscape showing the work of leafcutter bees on my pin oak, silver maple and jewelweed.

Where do leafcutter bees gather pollen and nectar?

Heather Holm, author of Bees: An Identification and Native Plant Foraging Guide, lists the following forage plants where leafcutter bees gather nectar and pollen:

Spring Forage Plants: 

  • Golden Alexander (Zizia aurea)
  • Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
  • Foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis)

Summer Forage Plants: 

  • Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
  • Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)
  • Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
  • Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum)
  • Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)
  • Blazingstar (Liatris pycnostachya)
  • Blue vervain (Verbena hastata)

Autumn Forage Plants: 

  • Goldenrod, species of Solidago, including showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa)
  • Asters, i.e., species of Symphyotricum, including New England aster, (Symphyotricum novae-angliae)
Here is a picture of Megachile fidelis, the faithful leafcutting bee, gathering nectar and pollen from a New England aster.
Joseph Rojas – iNaturalist (CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Specialist Leafcutter Bees

Some leafcutter bees specialize on the aster family of plants, known as Asteraceae. So we can support these bees around our home landscape by cultivating any representatives of the Asteraceae family, including goldenrod, sunflowers, ironweed and wingstem.

Check out this video of a female leafcutter bee carving out a leaf piece from a China Rose.

More leafcutting from leafcutter bees in my backyard

Here is evidence that a leafcutter bee was carving off pieces of a silver maple leaf (left). Here, leafcutter bees have been working on a jewelweed plant (right).

The following are photos of flowers from my home landscape, all of which make excellent forage for pollinators, including leafcutter bees.

Purple coneflower
(Echinacea purpurea)
Cutleaf coneflower
(Rudbeckia laciniata)
Blunt Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum muticum)
False Sunflower
(Heliopsis Helianthoides)
Cup plant
(Silphium perfoliatum)
Butterfly weed
(Asclepias tuberosa)
Brown-Eyed Susan
(Rudbeckia hirta)

This is my front yard garden from 2022. 

Included here are four great forage plants: Maximilian sunflower (Helianthus maximiliani), white crownbeard (Verbesina virginica), frost aster (Symphyiotricum pilosum) and New England aster (Symphiotricum novae-angliae)

Grow your garden and grow an ecosystem. Cultivate a diversity of native plants and avoid pesticides.

—Hart

Hart Hagan is a Climate Reporter based in Louisville, KY. He reports on his YouTube channel and Substack column. He teaches a course for Biodiversity for a Livable Climate called Healing Our Land & Our Climate. You can check it out and sign up for a class here.

Photos by Hart Hagan, except where noted.

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: Wasps

What creature taught humans to make paper, builds with mud and can pollinate a flower inside a fruit?

Wasps!

Young paper wasp queen guarding her nest and eggs.
Alvesgaspar (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

When creatures possess a defense mechanism capable of hurting us (like a sting), we categorize them as ‘dangerous.’ When they look differently than we do, we categorize them as ‘strange,’ and when they get attracted to man-made cities or agricultural fields due to the buffet of food we lay out for them, we categorize them as a ‘nuisance.’ When it comes to wasps, we call them all the above. 

Whenever a creature has a negative reputation, people wonder, “Why do we even need them? Can’t we just get rid of them?” It’s a painful reminder of the Ego mindset, the one that sets us above other species. But if we take a moment to learn about other creatures, especially the ones we consider “pests,” we soon move towards an Eco mindset. We begin to realize that all species are important for balancing Earth’s ecosystems, and that each individual brings something unique and irreplaceable to this planet. When we embody the Eco mindset, we no longer see humans as dominant, but as equal participants in nature’s systems.

Wide Range

The term ‘wasps’ includes a variety of species that are generally separated by their behavior (and not all of them are yellow and black – in fact, only about 1% of wasps sport those colors). Social wasps, such as yellowjackets and hornets, live in colonies with hierarchies similar to bees and ants while solitary wasps, such as potter wasps, do not. Social wasps start a new colony every spring. Each colony begins with a queen, and she will raise a few worker wasps to enlarge the nest and bring food. Once the nest is spacious enough, the queen will lay eggs, and by the end of the summer there will be thousands of colony members. Throughout autumn, all wasps will perish except for a few new queens. Over the winter, this new set of royalty will find shelter in a fallen log or an abandoned burrow, and when spring returns they will venture out to create new colonies. 

A social wasp (Vespula germanica)
Alvesgaspar (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Wonderful Architects

Wasps, unlike honeybees, cannot produce wax. To build nests, most species create a paper-like material out of wood pulp and shape the material into cells perfect for rearing. The manufacturing process involves gathering wood fibers from strips of bark, softening the wood by chewing and mixing it with saliva, and spitting it back out to form the cells. Some species, like Potter Wasps, prefer to design nests from mud.

Theory has it that 2,000 years ago, a Chinese official named Cai Lun invented our modern use of paper after watching wasps build a nest in his garden. So next time you read a book, write a note, or receive one of our letters in the mail, you can thank wasps for their ingenious skills!

Although many of us may not enjoy having a wasp nest in or near our home, it’s best to leave them alone when possible. Remember that a colony only lasts for a season, and once the wasps leave you can remove the remaining nest. If you need more convincing for leaving wasp nests intact, keep reading to learn how these creatures contribute to the environment.

Work-oriented

Despite the lack of recognition, wasps contribute to man-made gardens and agricultural fields by eating other ‘pests,’ or insects, that harm crops. Their wide-ranging diet and wide geographical range (they exist on every continent except Antarctica) means they contribute to human food sources worldwide. Wasps eat flies and grasshoppers, and will feed aphids to their growing larvae. Some also eat nectar, making them pollinators. Around the world, many farmers consider them essential for their food-production methods. When it comes to food security, we can thank wasps for looking after our crops.

Cuckoo Wasp (Chrysididae)
Vengolis (CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Well-balanced

I recently had my first fig, grown organically without any pesticides or chemical fertilizers, ever. It was delicious, and when I asked the manager of Sarvodaya Farm for another, we began to discuss the important role of wasps in fig reproduction.

Although figs are considered a fruit, they are actually an inverted flower. The fig blooms inside the pod, rather than outside, and so it relies on insect pollination to reproduce. It takes a special pollinator to crawl through a small opening and into the fig’s pod to bring the flower its much-needed pollen. Wasps like to lay their eggs in cavities, so they developed a mutually beneficial (or symbiotic) relationship with fig trees. Wasps get a home protected from predators to raise their young, and figs get to reproduce. 

Some species of wasps have developed a similar mutualistic relationship with orchids. The extinction of wasps would not only be detrimental for figs, orchids, and other plants that rely on insect eaters or pollinators, it would also be tragic for the many organisms that eat those plants (which, as a new fig fanatic, now includes me). 

My first fig ever, from Sarvodaya Farms, where I learned about the mutually beneficial relationship between figs and wasps

Warriors of disease

In case the invention of paper, crop protection, and pollination were still not enough to impress you, one species of wasp found in Brazil also produces a toxin in its venom that contains cancer-fighting properties. Even the substance that enables some wasps to kill larger prey contains healing properties. 

By writing about creatures a lot of people see as ‘pests,’ I hope to do my part in speaking against the way we view and treat other animals. I also hope these stories encourage you to take the time to learn from our non-human neighbors. Cai Lun demonstrated the incredible tools we can design when we look to nature for inspiration, a practice known as biomimicry. The solutions are all around us, but it’s up to us to be still, inquisitive, and open-minded, and to let nature show off her magic. 

Wishfully yours,

Tania

Tania graduated from Tufts University with a Master of Science in Animals and Public Policy. Her academic research projects focused on wildlife conservation efforts, and the impacts that human activities have on wild habitats. As a writer and activist, Tania emphasizes the connections between planet, human, and animal health. She is a co-founder of the podcast Closing the Gap, and works on outreach and communications for Sustainable Harvest International. She loves hiking, snorkeling, and advocating for social justice.