Goldenrods and their Dependent Fauna

Blue-winged wasp on goldenrod

Goldenrods are magnets for a wide variety of animal life. I am talking about the six-legged and eight-legged fauna, insects and spiders.

I enjoy leading walks in the fall to observe all the bounty of tiny wildlife buzzing, zipping along, and crawling and hiding in the goldenrod patch. I call this program "The goldenrod zoo". My favorites are the pollinators; but I also like to point out the various kinds of galls and their amazing makers and residents.

Goldenrods used to be regarded as weeds in North America; many people still see them that way. Recently I heard a gardener, an organic gardener at that, who wants to eliminate them from her property. This made me think about the beneficial qualities of goldenrods, both to wildlife in general and to gardens in particular. So I started a list.

Goldenrod round galls in winter. One of them has been opened by a chickadee

Round galls are produced in the stems of tall goldenrods by a species of flies (the goldenrod fly). Gail Eichelberger described the fly’s life cycle in "The Gall of That Goldenrod" in "Beautiful Wildllife Garden." She also mentioned how the gall fly larvae can serve as food for chickadees and downy woodpeckers during the winter months. I will simply add that you can tell which of these two birds has opened each gall. Downies skillfully chisel a clean hole, while chickadees are sloppier, and destroy a good part of the gall to get to the prize.

There are a few other types of galls, produced by moths or flies, many of these insects also provide food for birds.

Sweat bee Agapostemon

Sweat bee Augochloropsis

Let us take a look at the goldenrod flowers visitors. There are at least 380 species that visit just one species, the Canada goldenrod (Solidago Canadensis). Not all of them are pollinators and many visit other flowers besides goldenrod. But they all benefit from these flowers’ nectar and pollen.

Syrphid fly, a good aphid control

Feather-legged fly, Tachinidae

Leaf-footed bug. Notice the tachinid fly eggs on its head

Here I am listing a few whose larvae feed on other insects, so they provide an important ecosystem service as biological controls. The larvae of some Syrphid flies feed on aphids. Tachinid flies lay their eggs on other insects especially on stink bugs or related bugs which feed on plants.

Potter wasp

Wasps of many kinds are very abundant in the fall, so perhaps they are the most common visitors of goldenrod flowers. They include not just the more familiar and feared ones, hornets and yellow jackets, but also many solitary ones, which are less likely to sting. All of them catch insects or spiders to feed their larvae.

There is one in particular that has become a favorite of mine, the large and colorful blue-winged wasp, Scolia dubia. It is rather hairy and heavy-bodied, unlike most wasps. Its wings are supposedly blue, as the name suggests. But you need a little imagination, or the sunlight hitting them just right; otherwise they look smoky. The body is very dark blue-black, except for the last few segments of the abdomen which are reddish or orange with two bright large yellow spots.

The nice thing about this wasp is that its offspring feeds on the larvae of June beetles. The females spend a good deal of time searching the ground for beetle larvae and digging them out; this earns them their other common name: digger wasp. When a female wasp finds a grub, it paralyzes it. Then it digs a little deeper, builds a small chamber, and lays an egg on its victim. Gruesome, yes, but effective.

And here comes the best part: The blue-winged wasp has developed a taste for Japanese beetles and treats them the same way as June beetles. We all know that one of the most serious problems with introduced pests such as this is that they have left most of their enemies behind in the old country, so they can multiply unchecked. The USDA tried unsuccessfully to introduce some relatives of this wasp as biocontrols of the Japanese beetle. So it is wonderful to see that a native insect has become an enemy of the invasive pest.

Blue-winged wasp

Here’s to the blue-winged wasp and to the goldenrods that sustain it in the fall!

First published in "Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens" as "Goldenrod, a Weed or a Treasure?"

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Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors

All photos by Beatriz Moisset. All rights reserved
© Beatriz Moisset. 2013

Milkweed's last hooray. Part two

Polished lady beetle (Cycloneda munda) on dying milkweed leaf

The milkweed food chain would be incomplete without predators and parasitoids. Most of them are out of sight in November; but a few are around feeding on whatever is available, mostly aphids.

Multicolored Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis) pupa

Two species of ladybugs or lady beetles find abundant food on the dying milkweeds. A shiny adult polished lady beetle (Cycloneda munda) may be getting ready to hibernate. A little farther a pupa of the multicolored Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis) stays still on a leaf. It is rather infrequent to find one so exposed. This one is darker than most pupae of this species, but as its name indicates, color variations abound. In another month it would become an adult, out of its pupa. It would turn out darker than most of its kind.

Multicolored Asian lady beetle adult

 Another type of aphid eater is present in numbers and feeds on the two species of aphids mentioned in the previous post. The larvae of syrphid flies are blind and worm-like, lacking legs. Despite these disadvantages, they have no trouble finding aphids to feed upon, provided that the mother was careful enough to lay her eggs near a growing and prosperous colony of aphids.

Syrphid larva (Eupeodes americanus)

Syrphid larva (Eupeodes americanus)

It is impressive to see these maggots thrashing around until they find a plump juicy aphid. They hold it with their strong mouth parts and proceed to suck all the internal fluids until the prey is reduced to a deflated piece of skin. You can see the front end of the larva acting as a pump, expanding and contracting. Oddly, the other aphids in the colony have no fear, no premonition of what is in store for them. I have seen them approaching and then walking all over a syrphid maggot in total indifference.

 

 

Syrphid larva (Eupeodes americanus)

 

In a couple of weeks this will be all over. No more active life in the milkweed patch; just a few flying seeds carried by their fluff. The monarchs are long gone. All others remain in the area in hidden places safe from the weather and from the occasional winter predator. They will all return to their usual activities next year, when the milkweeds start sprouting new shoots and providing nourishment to them.

Milkweed's last hooray
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© Beatriz Moisset. 2012 

Goats Put to Service at Pennypack

If you go for a walk at Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust, you may run into some unusual workers recently enlisted to deal with weeds.

My friend and I went there for a walk last Monday and came upon four goats inside an enclosure made of electrified wires. These handsome creatures were merrily munching away brambles, multiflora roses, and oh joy, poison ivy!

Three young men wearing green shirts with the Pennypack logo were putting the final touches on the signs alerting people about the electric wires. We were full of questions for them and were pleased to see them eager to talk.

They told us that restoration programs have started using goats to control invasive vegetation, particularly in the West, and also in Staten Island, New York. Sometimes goats are more effective and more economic than herbicides or weed-whacking. Thus, these fellows convinced the director to start a goat program at Pennypack.

The four goats arrived last Easter and were put to work a month later, after a period of acclimation. Until now they had been doing their weeding job in secluded areas out of sight of visitors. This was their first day in a more visible place by the main trail. It is the visitors' turn to get habituated to the goats and to begin to appreciate their restoration services.

Before and after. November 12, 2012

Before and after. November 16, 2012

Everyday, these eager workers are brought to a patch in need of clearing and left there until dark. They may have to return to the same spot the next day if they haven't finished the job. After that, they are gradually moved to other patches. The goats spend the night in a roofed shelter safe from coyotes. Did you know that there were coyotes in Pennypack? Now you do.

I returned four days later to inspect the progress. The enclosure had been moved a short distance from that of the first day. The happy animals seemed to never stop chomping away at brambles and vines. At first, it wasn't easy to tell what they had accomplished; but after I found my bearings I could see that, in fact, they had disposed of a significant amount of tangled vegetation. They had also munched on the bark of some tree branches. They are not to blame for being so indiscriminate. It is the human handlers' responsibility to place them only where they can do no harm to valuable native plants.

The plan is to restore the goat-cleared areas by replanting them with native plants. This method beats using herbicides. It also beats using human workers, especially when poison ivy is abundant or when the mats of vegetation are impenetrable. Bear in mind that goats may cause damage to valuable plants if given the opportunity; so precautions are needed.

I will continue checking periodically on these four legged employees of Pennypack.

Invasive vines waiting to be disposed of by goats

Beatriz Moisset.11/17/2012

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© Beatriz Moisset. 2012

Invasive species

I do not hate invasive species

This article expresses my opinion on introduced species that become invasive. The species themselves are fine; what is problematic is our intentional and unintentional carrying plants and other organisms to other lands. This has given rise to an incredible large number of transplanted species that continue to alter ecosystems beyond anything that we could have imagined. The impact of introduced species on ecosystems continue to have all sorts of unintended consequences.

Wildlife Food and Non-native Plants

Queen Anne's lace and many visitors. What is it replacing?

I worry sometimes when people insist on seeing the merits of some introduced plant and claim that it is good for wildlife. We are all familiar with butterfly bush attracting butterflies and with the berries and rose hips of several alien plants which feed the birds. I have also seen Queen Anne’s lace blossoms covered with flower visitors. Another example is this blog article about English ivy and pollinators: Pollinators aplenty: English Ivy mixed blessings. The author tells us that the English ivy in his property is attracting numerous pollinators at a time when there aren’t any native flowers. He suggests that we “should step back and view non-natives with less disdain until we understand better what roles they now play in their adopted habitats.”

I think that this philosophy shows a lack of understanding of ecosystems and of what is missing in those that have been altered by humans. We tend to think that habitat loss is something far away, clear-cutting in the Amazon, for instance. We seem to forget that the urbanization and suburbanization of the areas where most of us live are representatives of a huge amount of habitat loss.

When pollinators and birds resort to non-native flowers and berries, it is because the habitat has been severely disturbed and the native plants that were supposed to sustain them are lacking. A healthy habitat is an assemblage of co-evolved and synchronized plants and the wildlife that feed on them. The absence of such plants is a very sad indication that the ecosystem has been dramatically disrupted.

Calling non-native plants beneficial to wildlife is ludicrous. They are merely acting as prosthesis. If I had a leg amputated, I too would sing the praises of a high quality prosthesis, no matter how alien to my body it was. But, I would prefer my own, native and co-evolved with my body, original leg.

Butterfly bush provides nectar to butterflies but very little else, unlike many native plants

Let us not be seduced by the fact that some introduced plants are used by wildlife. Normally, the natives do that job a lot better, plus they provide countless other services to the ecosystem. We are barely beginning to understand the very complex interactions between all the members of a living community. It is becoming apparent that most of them are missing when we mix organisms from all sorts of places.

More on the subject: I do not hate invasive species

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Feed the Birds

Goldfinches at feeder

You think that you love birds. Every week you pick up your binoculars and go birdwatching with others who share your interest. You have one or two birdhouses in your properties and, of course, bird feeders that you can see from your window while you drink your morning coffee. Yes, you are very much a bird lover.

But what would you think if I told you that you are probably dooming some birds to death and starvation through your gardening practices? Let us say that you decide to buy a new tree for your yard, you love the color and shape of Japanese maples and that is what you choose. Later on, you take a look at azaleas and rhododendrons and find out that there are some Chinese cultivars which you find extremely attractive. You bypass the native varieties and choose one of those.

These innocent actions have deplorable consequences for the birds that visit your yard. Birds have no use for those foreign plants. Well, you say, “I have seen them use those branches for nests, what could be wrong with such plants?”

Until just a year ago I would have thought exactly the same. I didn’t know the bad consequences of using non-native plants as long as they weren’t invasive. But reading a book by Doug Tallamy (Bringing Nature Home) opened my eyes to a whole new perspective and a new appreciation of how food chains work, not just in nature preserves and remote parks but in our own backyards.

A nutritious caterpillar feeding on native wild ginger

Numerous insects are adapted to native plants and find your Japanese maple and alien azalea totally inedible. So what? Who needs insects, anyway? You say. –Birds need insects; that is who! Ask yourself: what do birds eat? Particularly, baby birds with their voracious appetites and fast growing bodies? They need lots of proteins; that is why their parents spend several hours a day hunting for insects, because insects are little packages of protein. If your plants are non-native there isn’t much insect protein to be found on them and the birds have to search somewhere else.

So to put it in a nutshell, each time that you plant an exotic tree or shrub you are dooming some baby bird to hunger and death. Or, if it makes you feel better, each time that you plant native plants you are helping the birds you love, perhaps even more than you do with your bird feeders.

A handsome looking native shrub, mountain laurel

Nature centers and wildflower preserves as well as some arboretums sell native plants and can provide information on them. You can also find these regional native plant lists useful: Pollinator Friendly Planting Guide. They are intended for pollinator gardens but they can apply to all wildlife.

For the area I am familiar with, the Atlantic seaboard:
Delaware Native Plants for Native Bees

And of course, the book mentioned above: Tallamy, Doug: Bringing Nature Home and the website: Bringing Nature Home

Caterpillars are for the Birds

Have you ever seen a caterpillar hanging from a thread when you were walking through the woods? You probably have, more than once; it happens often enough that, although caterpillars are very small and not easy to see, everybody sooner or later gets a chance to see this peculiar scene.
Did you ever wonder where it was going? Certainly not up, most likely down. But, down where and for what reason?
Many caterpillars feed high on the canopy, devouring tender leaves and growing very fast. After they are done growing they start getting ready for the big transformation, called metamorphosis, which will turn the rather shapeless, wormy thing into a winged marvel, a moth.


Where you find a caterpillar there may be hundreds or thousands, all of them gleefully feeding on the same tree. Look up at the tree’s foliage above your head; there doesn’t seem to be much damage and this is very fortunate. Part of the reason is that there are many hungry creatures who regard the caterpillars as very tasty and very nutritious morsels of food. Among them you can count some of your most beloved birds, warblers, wrens, sparrows. You see them fleeting about and they may be picking up some of your caterpillar’s brothers and sisters. They will be taking them to their growing brood and ramming them down their hungry throats.
Let us get back to our question: where is the caterpillar going? It may be looking for a secluded place in the leaf litter, safe from winged predators (although not entirely safe for there are other hungry creatures in the soil too). Once on the ground it probably won’t go very far. In most cases it tries to find some leaf litter and it proceeds to bury itself in it. There it will begin spinning a cocoon using a special kind of saliva that changes into silk, strong and supple, as soon as it gets in touch with air.


It may proceed to undergo a big transformation in just one or two weeks to become an adult moth, or if it is the end of the season, it will wait until next year; hunkering down through a long and cold winter and will emerge only when the trees are already leafing out.


During that time it grows wings and legs and antennae and becomes a pretty moth ready to find a mate and to start the cycle all over again. If it is a female it will lay eggs after searching very diligently for the same kind of trees where it fed as a caterpillar.
Most caterpillars are very particular about their food; they can feed only on one kind of tree or perhaps a handful of related trees, for instance, only sugar maples or only several varieties of maples, but not oaks or ash trees. Others will choose only oaks or ash trees. They are so particular that many of the ornamental trees brought from overseas for their beautiful foliage or interesting shape are useless to them. The indirect consequence of a landscape with only imported plants is: no caterpillars - no food for the birds. If you love birds you may want to plant native trees to ensure that birds can find food hidden in their foliage.

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The Living Constellations Beneath our Feet

“. . . There is some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons. Each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora”.

So, says Grace the scientist (Sigourney Weaver) in an effort to explain the near mystical interconnectedness of that fictional planet in the movie Avatar. Being a scientist she wouldn’t use the word “gazillion”, but that is how you can interpret those numbers, quantities so huge that they are hard to grasp.

Pandora isn’t the only planet where trees are interconnected; you need go no further than your own backyard. I am not just talking about those intangible connections between plants and their animal pollinators, and plants and their animal seed dispersers. And I am not speaking of the soil enriching organisms that fix nitrogen to the benefit of many plants. These and others are important links in the web of life; but, in addition to those, there are physical, intimate, direct connections between plants and certain kinds of fungi. Moreover these fungi can establish connections between the roots of different plants. These extraordinary organisms are called mycorrhizae (or if you prefer mycorrhizas). The word mycorrhiza comes from two Greek words, myco, meaning fungus (fungi in plural), and rhiza, meaning root.


Take a look at mushrooms, those delicious morels or boletus or the deadly Amanita; you see them scattered through the forest. They look like a very small component of the plant community compared to the trees that tower over your head. Each of those mushrooms is a “fruiting body”, similar to a fruit, except that it produces spores rather than seeds. The mushrooms are the visible parts of a very large organism buried underground and called a fungus. Imagine an apple tree where only the apples are visible sprouting above the ground while the whole tree is spreading its branches underground. Such an “apple tree”, the main part of the fungus, is a very peculiar kind of organism, not as solid as a regular tree; instead it is made of a very intricate web of thin threads spreading out and connecting with themselves again and again when they meet, like a huge tridimensional spider web. They also link with the roots of trees, wrapping around them and penetrating their bark.

Fortunately, mycorrhizae are beneficial fungi which do no harm to plants; instead they establish a partnership with them. With their numerous threadlike tendrils they absorb water and mineral nutrients from the soil more efficiently than roots; so they can transfer these to the plants. In return, they get the sugars and vitamins that the plants synthesize thanks to their chlorophyll and with the help of the sun. It is a cooperative venture that benefits both partners.

Other mycorrhizae never see the light of day; they produce their spores underground and don’t form mushrooms; as a consequence, most of us are totally unaware of their existence. They are perhaps more abundant and more important to the life of the plant communities than the ones that produce mushrooms. Some of them penetrate the very cells of roots establishing an even more intimate connection with their partners.

Some members of the vegetable kingdom don’t require this kind of help. But it is estimated that at least eighty per cent of all plants are dependent on or benefit in some degree from mycorrhizal associations. It is a very ancient contract between plants and fungi, at least 400 million year old existing long before there were dinosaurs roaming the planet. It is possible that the partnership is even older and that it was established when the first pioneer plants left the water and climbed on land, around 425 million years ago.

You may think at this point: “very interesting, but how does it compare with the planetary network in Pandora?” This is what I am getting to. All these hair-like tendrils are capable of recognizing the members of their own clone and also those of closely related clones when they come in contact. They fuse when they meet, to the point that they become like one. Thus they connect among themselves and they reach out to the roots of trees, not just one tree but several. They do it again and again, forming countless links. This is the “Wood Wide Web”, so called by those who study these relationships. The bridges they form are capable of carrying water and minerals and even other nutrients not just from fungus to plant and vice versa, but also from tree to tree. Thus a fir tree connects to another fir tree and also links to the birch tree beyond them. When you walk in your vegetable garden, little do you know that the leek is talking to the carrot using the unseen web right under your feet!

A field that gets plowed over every year and is cultivated with annual crops has to start from scratch building this network every year, but a forest possesses a network perhaps as old as its oldest tree. Thus, the majestic old tree, surrounded by younger ones becomes a hub, from which the fungal network radiates in all directions like the spokes of a wheel maintaining continuous communication among all its parts. It makes you think of “Home tree” in planet Pandora or of a wise old elephant matriarch ensuring the safety of its herd.

But it is really the mycorrhizae that are the stewards of the forest. They seem to sense where the pressing needs of a plant are and from where they can borrow. In the spring, when the birches are leafless, the mycorrhizae take nourishment from the firs and carry it to them. Later on, when the leaves of birches cast shadow over the fir trees and these need some food the web reverses its flow, providing nutrients to firs taken from the birch.

“That is more connections than the human brain” explains Grace “It is a network, a global network”. And so it is with these obscure fungi; each mycorrhizal community nurtures one patch of plants and it contacts loosely with surrounding communities throughout large tracts of land. They confer resilience and stability to the forest far beyond what the trees could do by themselves.


When I ask people I meet what the word fungus means to them, the most frequent answers are “disease”, “plant damage”. The answer should be “connectivity”, “cooperation” or “healthy plant communities”.

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Squirrels, Managers of the Forest

Dancing in the Valley of the Lilies

The air was crystal clear in the meadow under the warm May sun, blue sky above and blue camas lilies below. That was the Mountain Dawn Farm Prairie, surrounded by trees and by more blue in the distance, the Cascade Mountains.

Many flower visitors buzzed along coming and going busily, most of them bees and bumblebees, but there were others; one in particular caught our attention. It had emerged from the ground after long winter sleep, along with numerous brothers and sisters. We called him SBF, a silly name but we all knew what we were talking about. SBF was a handsome dance fly with bright eyes, a hunch on his back, a slender abdomen and a thin, long tongue that had earned him the other name by which it is known, dagger fly. He delved deeply into flowers with his tongue and drank the nectar. He could also use his dagger for other purposes as we'll see later.

The nectar fueled his flight and he was doing a lot of flying that day. In his short life as an adult he had only one purpose, to find the girl of his dreams, seduce her with a well chosen present and make love to her. If time allowed he would find another girl of his dreams the next day. But for now he was busy searching for a wedding present that could satisfy the most demanding damsel. Midges were perhaps the best choice. He wanted one big enough to be appealing to his intended but not too heavy that he could not carry it for a certain stretch of time. He knew that at some point he would end up carrying both the prey and his beloved, so he had to make a careful choice.
When he saw a suitable one, he quickly pounced on it and stabbed it repeatedly with his dagger to subdue it and also to start preparing the delicious meal that he knew ladies willing to mate would favor.

After that he wrapped his gift with silk of his own making. Then he flew through the meadow in search of a meeting place, the equivalent of a singles bar. How do dance flies know where to congregate? I wouldn't know. But he did find a gathering with several suitors holding nuptial presents, just like the one he was carrying. He noticed with satisfaction that his gift compared favorably to most of the others. He joined the group suspended on the air, flying up and down, back and forth, holding his precious cargo on front of him, just as all the other bachelors. If you come into a cloud of them, you would think that they are dancing. That is how they got their name. More and more bachelor flies joined the ranks of dancers, all of them holding a present and all of them quivering with expectations and desire.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the same meadow a young female had emerged from the ground, the same as her brothers and had started her search. She looked very similar to the boys with one big difference, instead of a slender belly; hers was like an oval, loaded with eggs. Let us call her FBF. For those of you who are wondering about the names, SBF is a nickname, the full name being: Skinny Black Fly, so it is only appropriate that his plumper female relative be called Fat Black Fly. FBF needed protein to nourish the eggs that were her future children but she wasn't about to waste her precious energy on the search for food. She would let her lover take care of that. So she tried to make herself more seductive in order to attract the best suitor, one strong enough to provide a worthy and nutritious gift. Knowing that the males love well endowed ladies she plumped her stomach as much as she could. A little deception doesn't hurt, besides the boys were not beneath adding extra wrapping to their presents making them look bigger than they really were, so they were even. A fat belly in a female is a sign that she has a full load of mature eggs; neither he nor she knows that but they behave as if they knew it.
Off she went searching for the nearest gathering, wondering if she would find her knight in shining armor. Arriving at a meeting place, one handsome fellow caught her eye immediately, it was SBF. The gift that he was holding looked quite satisfactory so she approached him avoiding one or two overly eager fellows with their puny offerings. SBF was overjoyed when he saw her and gave her his package. She took it without ceremony and proceeded to devour the delicacy folding her wings and letting him carry her. For a few seconds the extra weight caught SBF by surprise but he quickly adjusted to it and flew some distance seeking privacy. There was no time to wait. He wanted to make love to her for as long as the meal permitted and so he did.

There isn't very much else to tell about this brief romance, other than soon FBF found the right place on the ground. It had some rich decomposing organic matter that would supply nourishment to her future babies and also warmth and shelter through the long months of winter. She laid her eggs there starting the new generation that would repeat the flower visits and the sun dance the next May.

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