northeast-flora-and-fauna

I was thinking recently about all the organisms that benefit from milkweed plants. (Some but not all of these also apply to dogbanes.) Just like trees support insects, birds, squirrels, and lichen as either homes or food, on a smaller scale milkweeds provide similar benefits: Perhaps their most famous connection is to Monarch butterflies, whose caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweeds (mostly leaves). They're not the only lepidopterans whose caterpillars rely on milkweeds; the Milkweed Tussock Moths also eat milkweed (and dogbane). It's not unusual to find aphids on milkweed plants. Some aphids like the Oleander Aphid are invasive, but they are insects that frequently feed on milkweed plants. And if aphids are eating milkweed, this is also likely to attract lady beetles that want to eat the aphids. Finally, the aphid poop is a sweet substance called honeydew that frequently causes Sooty Mold to grow. (I don't recall seeing aphids on dogbane, but they're documented...

Here's someone I met that I think I know, the Large Bee-fly . Despite the name, I wouldn't consider them to be large; they're measured in millimeters (6-12 mm). Presumably in the world of the bee flies they're relatively large, but no one who's not an entomologist is likely to say "Wow - look at the size of that thing!". I have to admit that I wasn't able to get any confirmation of the identification from iNaturalist, but the photos on Wikipedia look pretty close. And the Large Bee-fly is considered to be pretty common; it's not a stretch to imagine them at Sourland. When I took the pictures I saw them either on flowers or sunning themselves out in the open, and I suspected they might be flower flies (aka hover flies) of some sort. This would have given them an ecological niche very similar to many of our bees, competing with bees for nectar/pollen and important pollinators in their own right. Fortunately iNaturalist's picture recognition algo...

Here's another Monarch Butterfly . While both butterflies and bees are important pollinators, their motivations are different. Bees (at least bumblebees and honeybees) need to gather both nectar and pollen to bring back for their offspring to eat, so they're transporting pollen from flower to flower on purpose. Fortunately for flowers, the bees end up pollinating the flowers when some of the pollen spills out in their travels. Butterflies on the other hand don't have a use for pollen. They're sustaining themselves by drinking nectar but get pollen on themselves that they accidentally transport to the next flower. My impression is that bees are considered better pollinators; their intentional collection of pollen means they usually carry more to the next flower, even if their intention is to bring all that pollen back to their larva. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms