Pollinators and Other Insect Visitations on Native and Ornamental Perennials in Two Landscapes

Abstract

Many pollinator insects, especially honey bees [Apis mellifera Linnaeus (Apidae)] and wild bees, are experiencing population decline because of forage and habitat losses. Planting perennial flowering taxa is one method of increasing pollinator habitat. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the potential of 27 native species and ornamental perennial cultivars to determine their ability to attract insect pollinators in a rural and an urban landscape in North Dakota, assess the potential of these perennials to attract other beneficial insects and insect pests, and identify the bee species visiting these perennials. Five to eight native species and/or ornamental cultivars each from four genera, Monarda L. (bee balm), Hylotelephium H. Ohba (stonecrop), Baptisia Vent. (wild indigo), and Symphyotrichum Nees (aster), were tested. Weekly observations of individual plants during flowering and their pollinator visitations from 2018 to 2020 indicated that insect pollinators were present for the earliest flowering perennials in June and until the latest flowering perennials during the second week of October or the first freeze. A total of 16,194 insect pollinators were observed, and 87.8% of these pollinator visitations were Hymenoptera and Diptera. Significant landscapes × perennial flowering taxa interactions were detected for all insect groups, except for syrphid flies, for which both main effects were significantly different. Overall, honey bees and beetles preferred to visit Hylotelephium and Symphyotrichum. The wild bees, lepidopterans, and syrphids preferred Hylotelephium, Symphyotrichum, and Monarda. Tachinids preferred Symphyotrichum. Blow flies preferred Hylotelephium. More beneficial insect visitations (i.e., 96.0%) and fewer insect pest visitations (i.e., 30.4%) were counted on the rural landscape. A total of 3311 bee individuals were identified as species from the following families: Apidae, Andrenidae, Colletidae, Megachilidae, and Halictidae. Thirty-one and 21 bee species were unique to the rural and urban landscapes, respectively. The two most common wild bees were Ceratina calcarata Robertson on the cultivar S. oblongifolium (Nutt.) G.L. Nessom October Skies and Lasioglossum imitatum (Smith) on some Monarda and Hylotelephium. These findings suggest that pollinator visitations are influenced by the landscape and varied among the perennial flowering taxa in some cases. However, all evaluated perennial flower taxa would be suitable for attracting and supporting pollinators in rural or urban landscape settings in the northern Great Plains.