{"id":2243,"date":"2016-11-17T19:03:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T03:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/?p=2243"},"modified":"2017-12-08T10:00:44","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T18:00:44","slug":"reimagining-the-ecological-value-of-cities-for-dwindling-pollinators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/?p=2243","title":{"rendered":"Reimagining the Ecological Value of Cities for Dwindling Pollinators"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bombus<\/strong><\/p>\n

A recent\u00a0literature review on the ecology of urban areas<\/strong> published in Conservation Biology<\/em> offers irrefutable\u00a0evidence that cities can and ought to be havens\u00a0for wildlife, specifically pollinators. In “The City as a Refuge for Insect Pollinators,”<\/a>\u00a0the authors, a group of multidisciplinary scientists from around the world, recommend that urban areas\u2014particularly fast growing ones\u2014be managed to support biodiversity.<\/p>\n

Habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation, industrial farming<\/a>, wildlife diseases, and widespread use of toxic\u00a0pesticides have wiped out and continue to wipe out many insect pollinator species<\/a>. Along with other invertebrates, we really don’t know<\/a>\u00a0how many are disappearing from the earth forever, although new\u00a0studies<\/a> show horrifying losses. Since urban sprawl is a major reason for\u00a0the shocking loss of biodiversity, it’s surprising that historically, the consensus\u2014even among conservationists\u2014has been that cities can’t or don’t need to support wildlife. But many years of research on wild bees in urban areas\u00a0proves that cities can or still do supply habitat for both pollinator abundance and diversity, and\u00a0“in several cases, more diverse and abundant populations of native bees live in cities than in nearby rural landscapes.”<\/p>\n

While we certainly need to also restore and protect rural and suburban lands, there’s a growing realization that “pollinators put high-priority and high-impact urban conservation within reach,” writes the team. “The relatively small spatial and temporal scales of insect pollinators in terms of functional ecology (habitat range, lifecycle, nesting behavior compared with larger mammals for example) offer opportunities for small actions to yield large benefits for pollinator health.” Small actions<\/em>: they’re talking about you and me, as well as city planners. As the authors note, many residents understand the urgency and necessity, and are willing to help. Turning our yards into “real” \"Cedargardens, complete with native plantings and other elements that support entire life cycles of local biodiversity, ought to be paramount. Priceless\u00a0benefits to us (crop pollination and a chance to admire nature’s beauty), to countless other species that rely on\u00a0plants or insects for food, and to plants (pollination), come with the package.<\/p>\n

Urban conservation often aims to connect people to nature. This is, of course, a good thing, since nature education is extremely important\u2014it’s been said many times that the more we learn about wildlife and natural processes, the more we will want to protect it. But if more effort was spent on wildlife itself and providing what it needs (large, undisturbed, interconnected areas of native flora), no doubt many species would be much better off. I always feel a need to apologize to startled birds and little mammals I encounter on walks in natural areas around\u00a0the city. There’s a reason wildlife refuges often close off sections to pedestrians: many species are hypersensitive to human presence; they see us as predators and the stress harms them. It would be immensely beneficial if parts of urban areas were also simply left to the wild ones.<\/p>\n

I can’t agree more with the authors.\u00a0If we want to recover and protect pollinators and other wildlife globally, we need to tend to their needs locally. It will take policy makers, planners, and environmental managers, but also each of us, whether we work individually or engage with\u00a0community organizers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 2016 Eileen M. Stark<\/a><\/p>\n

To leave a comment, click on post’s title<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent\u00a0literature review on the ecology of urban areas published in Conservation Biology offers irrefutable\u00a0evidence that cities can and ought to be havens\u00a0for wildlife, specifically pollinators. In “The City as a Refuge for Insect Pollinators,”\u00a0the authors, a group of multidisciplinary scientists from around the world, recommend that urban areas\u2014particularly fast growing ones\u2014be managed to support […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[93,94],"tags":[107,95,255,376,260,96,136,219,186,375],"class_list":["post-2243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-functional-gardening","category-wildlife","tag-beneficial-insects","tag-biodiversity","tag-butterflies","tag-city-wildlife","tag-functional-gardening","tag-functional-gardening-2","tag-northwest-native-plants","tag-pollinator-garden","tag-pollinator-plants","tag-urban-pollinators"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p69uLV-Ab","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2243"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3526,"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions\/3526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realgardensgrownatives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}