Educational Insights - Restoration of The Wild and Wonderful

The Decline of the North American Prairie:
The abundance of flowers in prairies makes them nutrient rich for pollinators, but they are unfortunately North America’s most endangered ecosystem (Samson & Knopf, 1996). Despite this, there is a lot of opportunity for prairie restoration in North America’s surplus of abandoned land, and also backyards (Querioz et al., 2014). Prairies were mostly converted into agricultural land for farming. This large scale land-use change altered prairie seed banks and suppressed important disturbance regimes such as wild fire and ruminant foraging (Querioz et al., 2014). Indigenous peoples’ hunting practices of bison in North America often involved fire, which also served to be a good management practice of the North American Prairie. The extirpation of indigenous people played a key role in the conversion and decline of US prairie (Roos et al., 2018).

Introduction of keystone species like bison is only practical in large scale restoration efforts.

Brandon Latorre administering prescribed burns at the Kellogg Biological Station Experimental Prairies

Insect Decline:
The need to restore ecosystems to promote animal populations, especially pollinators, has never been more important. Research in Europe and North America demonstrates mass reductions of terrestrial insect species diversity and abundance (Hallmann et al., 2017; Wepprich et al., 2019; Van Klink et al., 2020). In fact, Van Klink et al., (2020) conducted a meta-analysis that integrates 166 long-term insect surveys and found a 9% decadal decrease of terrestrial insect abundance. Decreases in bee species richness are evident in GBIF occurrence records, with 25% fewer species in recent decades compared to before 1990 (Zattara Aizen, 2021). Declines in insect abundance and richness will undoubtedly have cascading trophic effects on ecosystems and will compromise acquisition of various ecosystem services, including pollinator functions by pollinating insects.

Nutrition/Economic Insecurity:
Up to five billion people will experience decreased nutrition as a result of insufficient pollination (Kramer et al., 2019). Pollination has been studied exhaustively and their worldwide importance is well known: ~90% of flowering plants at least benefit from pollinator services (Ollerton et al., 2011). Providing good quality habitat for these organisms is of high priority in the attempt to help mitigate biodiversity loss and secure food safety (Potts et al., 2010). Thirty-five percent of global food supply depends on pollinator functioning and the total economic value of worldwide pollination was estimated to be about 190 billion USD (Gallai et al., 2009; Ollerton et al., 2011). Habitat restoration provides an avenue for recovery, and can be implemented locally.

Call To Action: Say NO to Lawns
By reversing detrimental human changes to the environment, habitat restoration conserves biodiversity and promotes ecosystem functioning (Suding, 2011). Lawns are often not biodiverse and offer few resources to pollinating insects. Let native flowers shine to help your pollinating neighbors! All humans have an obligation to plant their own small garden of native plants.

More Educational Insights and References Cited

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