Protecting Pollinators

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July/August 2017

By Melissa Tinling

Pollinators are essential to the fabric of life on Earth. Simply by transferring pollen from one flower to another, these insects and animals enable fruits and seeds to grow, thereby providing a crucial service to human food production. Ecological communities worldwide also depend on their services. Pollinators are truly foundational to the global food web.

Unfortunately, the relationships among people, plants, and pollinators are under serious threat from multiple stressors in our changing world. Populations of insect pollinators are declining worldwide, and it is likely that many of these species either have already or may soon become extinct. The loss of pollinator services and the corresponding damage to dependent plants and animals will have significant negative ecological and economic impacts reaching from the fields to our grocery store shelves. Can you imagine life without apples, blueberries, or pumpkins? Even fast food needs pollinators: Dairy and meat livestock eat alfalfa flowers, which require pollination; and French fries depend on vegetable oilseed pollination.

The plight of pollinators has successfully captivated public attention in recent years, especially thanks to the popularity of the charismatic honeybee. In 2014, former U.S. President Barack Obama created the Pollinator Health Task Force to compel America to action through federal leadership.

The resulting National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honeybees and Other Pollinators called for bolstering honeybee and monarch butterfly populations and supporting native pollinator species by planting 7 million acres of enhanced habitat by 2020 and increasing public edu-cation on the subject. The national strategy was targeted at governmental agencies and institutions; however, American citizens have also answered the call by planting pollinator habitat, changing their landscape maintenance practices to better protect insect biodiversity, and spreading the word widely. And, it turns out that colleges and universities are uniquely poised to lend a helping hand to pollinators.

Made-to-Order Habitat

Two significant facts stand out when it comes to pollination opportunities for higher education. First, large institutional land holdings have immense potential for boosting pollinator habitat acreage nationwide in alignment with the national strategy. From formal landscaping around the campus quad to marginal areas such as mowed roadsides, public institutions in the U.S. maintain millions of acres that could be harnessed for pollinator support. Campus pollinator habitat can fit in diverse areas, including rooftops, greenways, power cuts, and even agricultural hedgerows.

But building brand new gardens isn’t necessary—campuses can also simply select pollinator-friendly tree and shrub species to add to their existing landscapes. Management practices can also be re-examined to better support pollinators. For example, integrated pest management techniques that strive to avoid harming pollinators can be applied to existing campus landscapes.

Second, the educational resources of colleges and universities can greatly support the pollinator cause. For example, academic courses, research projects, service learning projects, extension services activities, and special events can all be mobilized to spread pollinator awareness to students and surrounding communities. Academic departments focused on natural sciences are key partners, as are the grounds department and sustainability officers. Student organizations are also likely partners. And don’t forget social media. The opportunities are endless.

Sharing Support Strategies

Many colleges and universities are already standing up for pollinators, both on campus and in the classroom. From coast to coast, schools are introducing new plants into their landscapes, adopting friendlier pest management practices, and engaging the student body. North Carolina State University (NC State), Raleigh, is one example of a strongly engaged campus. As one of two land-grant universities in North Carolina, the agricultural tradition at NC State already supported pollinators academically through scientific courses and research. Inspired by the activities at the nearby University of North Carolina, Asheville, NC State has added additional pollinator-friendly activities in recent years:

Pollinator habitat. The NC State facilities division grounds management department maintains over a dozen pollinator plantings around campus, including around residence halls, at the art museum, along a side road, on the disc golf course, and more. NC State is also home to four honeybee hives around campus.

Education. In 2017, NC State hosted its first ever Pollinator Education Week, in partnership with the Office of Sustainability. Six events targeted at engaging students took place, including an information fair, a movie screening, and a garden cleanup project. Several hundred students directly engaged in these events, and likely thousands more were indirectly affected through publicity efforts and social media.

Awareness. The NC State Office of Sustainability maintains a website highlighting all the pollinator activities on campus, from student organizations to scientific research. The site also includes a map showing the locations of all the pollinator habitats mentioned here.

Financing for the Future

Through these activities, NC State has learned several valuable lessons. Sustaining pollinator habitat requires staff training and dedicated labor hours. Communicating effectively with boots-on-the-ground labor is also necessary.

NC State students, staff, and volunteers install a pollinator habitat at NC State, Raleigh.

Most importantly, it is crucial to allocate sufficient financial resources. A recent online survey of 55 North Carolina colleges and universities found that very few schools presently have coordinated financial management of pollinator efforts. Most respondents (66.7 percent) used their general operating budget to finance pollinator projects. Zero respondents reserved funding through specific budget line items. For outside sources of funding, 19.1 percent received private gifts; 16.7 percent used grants; and 4.8 percent engaged a corporate partner.

There is, however, ample opportunity for campuses to expand these creative funding sources. Grounds maintenance departments should connect with potential campus partners to seek out funding opportunities, such as the development office, sustainability office, horticultural science department, or other relevant entities. Here are some possible funding sources to consider:

General operating budget of groundskeeping department.
Specific line item or fund in groundskeeping budget.
Private gifts from individual donors—reach out to your institution’s fundraising or development office to establish a way for donors to contribute to that specific fund.
Public moneys for stormwater management, reforestation, removal of invasive species, and other ecological remediation efforts.
Grants from public or governmental institutions and nonprofits supporting pollinators or more general environmental causes.
Partnerships with private institutions or local businesses—consider enterprises dependent on pollinators, such as cosmetic companies that rely on beeswax, food companies that use honey, or horticultural and agricultural industries.

Strategies for Today

Institutions of higher learning are leaders in building public understanding of crucial issues facing our society. Pollinator protection is no exception. North Carolina is certainly not the only university system engaging with pollinators—this type of landscaping is becoming a norm at colleges and universities.

There is still room for growth. Pursuing new and different ways to protect pollinators in accordance with each schools’ unique goals and priorities, we recommend that colleges and universities undertake the following strategies to positively impact pollinators:

1. Think outside the flower box: consider selecting pollinator-friendly tree, shrub, and even grass species for all new plantings on campus. Trees can support incredible biodiversity at a much greater scale than a few flower blossoms.

2. Install signage that labels or interprets pollinator-friendly habitat. Even for one small patch of native flowers, communicating the purpose of the planting to passersby will increase impact. Plus, signage helps assuage any dissatisfaction should the area appear “messy” in the off-season.

3. Create a web presence documenting pollinator-friendly initiatives. Consider including a map of your pollinator plantings, pictures and news articles, and links to additional resources.

4. Create a written pollinator-friendly landscaping policy. Gather all the important stakeholders together to discuss and decide on priorities and goals—then commit them to writing. Plan to revisit this document in a year or two to evaluate your progress.

5. Pursue stable funding to support pollinator habitat maintenance and educational events. Internal funding, grants, donations, and corporate gifts are all potential funding sources. Reach out to your fundraising or development office to begin the conversation.

MELISSA TINLING is a graduate student in horticultural science at North Carolina State University, Raleigh.

This type of landscaping is becoming a norm at colleges and universities.

Create Pollinator Habitats With Good Practices and Partners

Back in 1995, the University of North Carolina, Asheville, created a garden to attract butterflies, not for their role in pollination, but for their delicate beauty.

Since then, we have changed our focus to that of encouraging all pollinators—which include butterflies, bees, bats, flies, and other insects—by choosing to cultivate in our landscaping native plants, most of which are beneficial to pollinators whether as host plants or food sources.

Pollinators are responsible for one in every three bites of food we eat. Bees pollinate 75 percent of fruits and vegetables. Everything from chocolate to coffee to blueberries requires bee pollination.

We believe that the health of the pollinators, plants, and people are all very interconnected. We have found that what benefits one species, be it human or animal, seems to benefit all species. A healthy campus for our pollinators translates into a healthy campus for our people.

Progress Requires Partners

Our ultimate goal is to create an ecological landscape that connects our urban forestry program to the stormwater management program, all of which contribute to the health or sickness of pollination and people. Of course, this requires ongoing collaboration among our many departments and divisions.

A pollinator web page keeps students, faculty, and staff informed of various efforts, such as establishing honeybee hives on campus, starting a student bee club, creating a bee hotel that gives bees a welcoming habitat and place to live, and becoming a certified bee campus.

Other examples of interdepartmental cooperation abound: We started a bee committee made of 10 members, including students, faculty, and staff from six departments. The biology department is in the process of planting a phenology garden and studying the effects of climate change on wildflowers. Library staff members have started a pollinator seed library and are collecting, cleaning, and storing seeds. Two professors are incorporating pollinator health into the curriculum of their classes.

We also rely on outside partners. For example, Burt’s Bees Foundation and the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area funded the two large pollinator gardens installed in 2016 near the main entrance of our campus. Together, the two funders contributed about $15,000 for plants, design, educational signage, student labor, and undergraduate research stipends.

Isn’t That a Dandelion?

Our focus on creating a pollinator-rich environment hasn’t been without challenges.

Maintenance. With a heavily planted campus, weeds are a huge challenge, because we are committed to minimal use of herbicides. We also leave large swaths of our surroundings unmulched for ground-nesting bees. It’s time-consuming to pull weeds by hand when you don’t use herbicides or mulch.

Aesthetics. People expect a college campus or public garden to be perfect—the grass to be clover free and beds to be mulched. In the winter, we leave perennials standing, even after they’ve gone dormant and have dead stems, because it’s better for the perennials’ overall health. Many people find the dead stalks unsightly. Only through education can we change people’s perception of what is beautiful—or at least acceptable. We must balance the sense of perfection against protecting the creatures that ensure we have food.

Public perceptions. When we came up with the idea of a bee hotel, some people worried about getting stung. We explained that a solitary nesting bee, which lives in the bee hotel, is not aggressive—some are even incapable of stinging. Increasing pollinators does not increase the risk of getting stung.

What’s Next?

This summer, we are partnering with the Ashland Museum of Science to help host a nature camp where we plan to show children how to make bee hotels out of hollow stems and wooden boxes. To create a bee hotel, we use natural materials to supplement the habitat of solitary nesting native bees, which could include mason and carpenter bees. The bees lay eggs in the hotel and drop off beebread, which is a mixture of pollen and nectar and serves as a food source when an egg hatches.

When we first built our campus bee hotel, which is now huge, we thought, “Man, I hope somebody shows up.” What we learned: If you build it, they will come.

For more on UNC-Asheville’s pollination efforts, including a plant list and integrated pest management plan, visit https://facilities.unca.edu/pollinator-gardens-unc-asheville.

MELISSA ACKER is manager of grounds, landscape design, and development; and JACKIE HAMSTEAD is environmental specialist, University of North Carolina, Asheville.