Be a Habitat Hero!
Written by Pam Piombino
Boulder County Audubon is embarking on a sustained effort to encourage the use of native, low water plants in Boulder County gardens. Information about the BCAS Habitat Heroes program can now be found in a special, prominent section on our website.
Our goal is to educate thoughtful gardeners to create appropriate habitat that enhances regional natural systems. Not only will you be saving precious water in your landscapes, you will also help prevent the collapse of the food web.
Before and after a Habitat Hero inspired the garden to increase native species and increasing pollinator-friendly plantings. Not to mention a dramatic increase in curb appeal. Photo by Sharie Chickering.
A seldom stressed, yet critically important point is that native insects cannot use many of the chemical compounds in non-native plants with which they didn’t co-evolve. Almost all of the globally sourced green stock at local nurseries are, with few exceptions, useless to Colorado insects and their larvae.
Why? It’s all about photosynthesis and chemicals. Plants harness solar energy, combining carbon dioxide, nutrients and water to produce sugars creating all they need to grow. This is the beginning of the food chains in your yard. Very few other living entities can produce their own energy from the sun, so all other organisms have to rely on plants for their food and energy. The Phylum Arthropods (insects, spiders and crustaceans) are found across the planet and in many specialized niche spaces by utilizing the energy produced by plants. If the chemicals in the plants available to them don’t match what they evolved with, they cannot exploit them. Period!! Their importance to the food web cannot be overstated as they are the sole source of nutrition for many amphibians, birds, reptiles, and mammals.
The wormy, squirmy larvae, which we refer to as caterpillars, are an essential food source for many organisms, but especially birds. Research on Carolina Chickadees documented the parents feeding between 390 to 570 larval insects per day for 16 days – that totals 6300 to 9100 individual caterpillars! And chickadees are tiny birds. Northern Flickers weigh over 5 times as much as chickadees but eat a lot of ants and ground beetles. How many ants would be required to raise a nest of Northern Flickers? A key here is that caterpillars and other insects cannot digest, assimilate or thrive on chemical compounds found in plants with which they did not co-evolve. Therefore, to nurture our native wildlife, we need to plant and nurture the native plants they depend on!!!
We will use the BCAS Habitat Hero webpage, regular articles, and seminars to explore the many facets of the relationships between native plants, local insects, birds, and other animals.