Welcome to our Pollinator Field Note Series! Offshoots released a Pollinator Action Plan with the City of Somerville, in collaboration with bee scientist and expert Nick Dorian. Continue reading to take a sneak peek into our conversation about demystifying pollinators!

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Pollinators are essential to ecosystems and food production, yet their populations are declining due to habitat loss, pesticide use, invasive species, light pollution, and climate change. Urban development and agricultural expansion have fragmented once-diverse landscapes, replacing them with lawns and non-native plants that offer little value to pollinators.

These animals rely on connected habitats for nectar, pollen, nesting materials, and host plants, often traveling hundreds of yards or more to find resources. Ensuring connectivity between habitat patches is critical for their survival.

Pollinator gardens in urban areas can help restore these connections while also engaging communities. When people appreciate and interact with pollinator-friendly spaces, they are more likely to support conservation efforts—creating a cycle that benefits both pollinators and people.

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Pollinators are Welcome Here!

Pollinators are essential to ecosystems and food production, yet their populations are declining due to habitat loss, pesticide use, invasive species, light pollution, and climate change. Urban development and agricultural expansion have fragmented once-diverse landscapes, replacing them with lawns and non-native plants that offer little value to pollinators.

These animals rely on connected habitats for nectar, pollen, nesting materials, and host plants, often traveling hundreds of yards or more to find resources. Ensuring connectivity between habitat patches is critical for their survival.

Pollinator gardens in urban areas can help restore these connections while also engaging communities. When people appreciate and interact with pollinator-friendly spaces, they are more likely to support conservation efforts—creating a cycle that benefits both pollinators and people.

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Animals such as bees, beetles, and butterflies move between flowers to find food (nectar). In the process of moving between flowers, animals can transfer tiny grains of pollen from one flower to another. These animals are pollinators and this animal-mediated pollination results in fertilization of the plant and the production of seeds. Animals play a vital role in the reproduction of nearly 90% of flowering plants (Ollerton et al., 2011). Somerville is home to many species of pollinators that can be divided into six broad groups: bees, wasps, butterflies and moths, hover flies, beetles, and birds. For the purposes of this Plan, we considered pollinators to be flower-visiting animals that have the capacity to transfer pollen between flowers. Within these categories are a wide range of species with specific needs to keep their populations healthy.

Many people are quite afraid of insects or have serious insect allergies to consider. This can raise concerns when discussing the implementation of pollinator gardens, especially at schools. However, it is important to note that many flower-visiting insects do not sting. Of the pollinators in Somerville, only bees and wasps possess stingers, and only the females of each species can sting. Even more, the vast majority of species are unlikely to sting since they are solitary and do not defend a social nest. When observing bees and wasps on flowers, there is an incredibly low risk of being stung if observed from a respectful distance. This means that planting flowers can be considered a safe activity even when it does attract bees and wasps to the garden. Education on this topic is important to convey to the community and educational signage should be included at all pollinator gardens.

It is recommended that you avoid approaching the nests of ground-nesting yellowjackets (social wasps) and aerial yellowjackets or bald-faced hornets (social wasps), which are the most aggressive stinging insects among Somerville’s pollinators.

Local pollinator species can be identified using many web-based tools. To learn more about insect identification (in the Northeast), we recommend Heather Holm’s books “Bees” and “Wasps,” Skevington et al.’s Field Guide to Flower Flies of Northeastern North America, online guides from Tufts Pollinator Initiative, and the website watchingbees.com.

Pollen allergies are another very common concern. Community members may worry that increasing pollinator gardens will increase the amount of pollen floating around the city. Many of the plants recommended require animal pollination versus wind pollination. Species that are major contributors to seasonal allergies are pollinated by wind. A common misconception is that native plants (like goldenrod) that bloom at the same time as wind pollinated plants (i.e., ragweed) are contributing to allergies. However, planting pollinator-friendly plants will have little to no impact on seasonal pollen allergies!

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This research was a part of Offshoots’ research project in partnership with the City of Somerville and field scientist Nick Dorian, to create the Somerville Pollinator Action Plan (SPAP). Citations and links to academic articles can be found in the SPAP document. To learn more about the action plan, visit our SPAP projects page here.