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 nesting habitats!

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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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Habitat Creation

There is a great need to establish more habitats for pollinators. In the face of global insect decline, providing food and nesting resources is the most substantial impact anyone can make, but especially those who live and work in cities.

The most effective way to support pollinators is to offer the habitat (an area that provides the specific food, shelter, and water requirements for a given species) they need throughout their entire life cycle. While those needs vary from pollinator to pollinator, this directive encourages practices that support as many species as possible. There are three main types of habitats to consider: foraging (searching for food), nesting (creating a secure place to lay eggs), and overwintering (the process of surviving the colder months when food is scarce). By providing these, people can support pollinators throughout their life cycle, year after year. Some general guidelines on habitat creation for pollinators include:

Foraging Habitat

We all need to eat, including pollinator adults and babies. Increasing the amount of foraging habitat by planting flowering plants in fragmented urban environment directly supports pollinators. Pollinator adults are foraging for both pollen and nectar. Some are pollen specialists and require only very specific species of plants (approximately 15% of northeastern bees (Fowler, 2016)). Some are pollen generalists and can visit all plants. Some do not need pollen at all and are only looking for nectar. Many pollinator babies (i.e., larvae) need to eat the leaves of specific host plants to survive. This Plan provides recommendations for planting pollinator species that support all of the above. Plant lists for specific gardens that target foraging resources or larval host plants for specific pollinators, including at-risk species, are provided in Section 11: Pollinator Pantry (see Plant Lists and Monitoring Gardens) along with pre-designed garden plans (see Recipe Cards – Pots, Patches, Lawns ) that provide an umbrella effect and benefit a wide range of species.

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Provide Native Plants

Prioritize using native plants to you region to support your native pollinators. These species coevolved with the diverse array of native pollinators found and as such are uniquely suited to support them. A native plant is one that was found naturally in our area pre-European settlement (RodomskyBish, 2018). Although some non-native species may provide food for pollinators, native plants generally attract more pollinators than non-native species (Seitz, van Engelsdorp, & Leonhardt, 2020; Salisbury et al., 2015), and provide essential nesting and overwintering habitat. Native plants are vital to supporting native insects, in particular the specialist pollinators, at the bottom of the food web. These native plant and insect interactions are key to a functioning ecosystem. It is worth noting that some of the plants historically suited to a respective location’s soils and climate (Boston Basin Ecoregion) may not be well suited in the future. By using a mix of local and regionally native plants, cities can develop a network of habitat that can adapt into the future. The goal is to plan for changing conditions so that any efforts made now will benefit pollinators while also tolerating increased heat, precipitation and urban pressures such as salt, rabbit browsing, and poor soils. Many pollinators have large ranges, and native plants from outside your immediate ecoregion are suitable for urban conditions and support many pollinators.

Nesting and Overwintering Habitat
(See: Fall Maintenance and Overwintering Practices)

To fully support pollinators, gardens designed to support them must include not only flowering forage resources but consideration of the specific nesting and overwintering needs of the species present and desired. Pollinators spend only a portion of their life cycle in their recognizable adult forms and much of their time is spent out of sight. Their various nesting and overwintering needs can be accommodated through garden design and maintenance decisions further outlined in the Somerville Pollinator Action Plan linked below.

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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.