The curtain rises in the NH and VT wetlands when Winter’s ice begins to fragment,and Spring’s melt begins.Beavers regulate the water levels throughout the season,expanding the edges as they harvest the forest. I find the vernal pools, bogs and fens-edged by hardwood and evergreen forests-endlessly fascinating.The plants in these habitats come into bloom sequentially throughout the season, and their bounty is exploited by a diverse pollinator constituency.
Most pollinators travel from plant to plant within a specific species, either drinking its nectar (and getting coated with pollen), or specifically eating and collecting pollen to feed their larval young, and/or to line their egg tunnels.Other pollinators are eating pollen and accidentally transfer some of it from plant to plant1 As they forage.
So,who are these pollinators?
Manyare Flies: Some are tiny flies –others are flies that mimic bees–and some are midges and mosquitoes. Even House Flies are pollinators.
Various Native Bees are everywhere, This one is a Masked Bee.3
Bumblebees and colorful Sweat-bees abound. Tricolored bumblebee4 and Sweat Bee.5
Moths and Butterflies drink nectar and move pollen between their chosen species. Here is a Hummingbird Moth6 and a Little Wood Satyr Butterfly7.
Various Beetles munch on pollen and drink nectar too.I’m not sure who this one is!
There are quite a few beneficial Wasps that are both pollinators and predators. Some live solitary lives, and others live communally. Great Golden Digger Wasp,8 Potter Wasp,9 and Thread-waisted Wasp10
Some Ants eat pollen and others take pollen home to feed their larvae.Some Ants drink nectar picking up and dispersing pollen in the process.
Hummingbirds in search of nectar zoom long distances to nectar on their chosen species transferring the pollen (trapped in their feathers ) from plant to plant in the process.
Honeybees(non-native)are present in the marshes, but do not appear to be dominant pollinators, or perhaps I am not focusing on them enough as I try to learn about the native pollinators.11
I love to sit, to watch and to listen to the wetland neighborhood-the twittering of the songbirds,the wailing of the ravens,the “kerchunk” of the bullfrogs,and the honking and splashing of the geese coming and going. Underfoot, mice scurry back and forth around my feet -foraging among the roots of the grasses.The Dragonflies and Damselflies,between hunting excursions,return again and again to their designated lookout perches.
Throughout the season,many of these creatures have different phases in their life cycle and may play different roles within these life changes. For Example:
Hoverflies begin life as aphid-eating grubs and Ants tend and farm aphids for their honey
Moths and Butterflies begin life as voracious plant-eating caterpillars.
Frogs and tadpoles eat insects -including the nymphs of dragonflies
Dragonfly and damsel fly nymphs, spend as much as a year underwater,eating tadpoles, tiny fish and any other creatures they can catch.They emerge from the briny deep,to crawl up and attach to a stem to shed their skins and transform into airborne hunters.13
Ants collect seeds with special coatings. They carry these seeds to their nests to feed this coating to their larvae.Then, as tidy housekeepers, they discard the seeds with their waste in their trash piles that then become plant nurseries.
Seed-eating Birds and Mammals poop out undigested seeds,moving plants from place to place, in the process. A bird-planted Mountain Ash high up in an ancient rotting maple tree
Seed-eating and nectar-drinking birds feed their young with thousands of protein rich insects.
Pollinating predatory wasps and bumblebees fill their larders with paralyzed or killed insects for their young.
Mosquitoes and midges feed on the blood of mammals and birds.
Fish, tadpoles,and the nymphs of dragonflies and damsel flies eat mosquito eggs and larvae.
The airborne Dragonflies and Damsel flies eat thousands of mosquitoes every day.
It is a rough world out there in the wetlands. Our diverse pollinators play a vital part in these fascinating, dynamic and complex-yet fragile-habitats. Please protect them.
1The pollen transfer between individual plants within a species is a critical part of fertilization -a process that culminates in eggs turning into fertile seeds.
2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoverfly
3https://www.greatsunflower.org/hylaeus
4http://wiatri.net/inventory/bbb/resources/SpeciesDetail.cfm?ESTID=11427
5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halictidae
6Hummingbird Moth caterpillars feed exclusively on honeysuckle, dogbane, and shrubs in the rose family
7Little Wood Satyr caterpillars feed on grasses
8https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Great-Golden-Digger-Wasp
9https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/beneficials/beneficial-30_potter_wasp_eumenes.htm
10https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammophila_procera
11The picture below showing a crab spider eating its captured honeybee and the housefly waiting for lunch, also shows the functional parts of this pollinator with its pollen pouches filled with pollen and its hairy body parts that can hold pollen. This picture is not from a natural wetland, but from flower beds adjacent to the wetland plantings at Coastal Maine Botanic Gardens.
12Mourning cloak caterpillars eatthe foliage of manytrees and shrubsincluding willow, poplar, and maples.
13https://www.dragonfly-site.com/dragonfly-life-cycle.html