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percent resistance to being eaten by another bug. Claussen’s won the Green Works/Vermont Nursery and Landscape Association Environmental Awareness award in 2012 for its efforts in reducing pesticide use. For any IPM system to work, Skinner says, it must be both simple and affordable. “It has got to be something that a grower is going to want to adopt,” she says. “When we first started working with growers, many of them didn’t even want to admit they had a pest problem. But over the years, they’ve become much more
forthcoming [and] much more inclined to share information.” The biggest challenge for IPM strategists, Skinner says, is educating the general public about the benefits of this paradigm-shifting method. For decades, consumers have insisted on pest-free products, which brought about a heavy use of pesticides. Now, to swing the pendulum the other way, Skinner says, consumers must recognize that picture-perfect produce comes at a cost. Even in eco-minded Vermont, she says, that’s not going to be easy. m
A Bug’s Life « p.41
species 30 years ago or more, before regulations were enacted to limit such contact. “Start adding these issues together and it spells big trouble for some of these bees,” McFarland says.
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McFarland suspects neonicotinoids might be a root cause. The biologists who conducted the study took a “bumblebee census” across the entire state of Vermont, collecting Butterflies more than 10,000 specimens. Then Not all of McFarland’s news is bad. they compared their data with those He’s recently been surveying the local from the state’s historical records back population of the giant swallowtail to 1900. Their conclusion, McFarland butterfly, and his data suggest that this says, was “pretty alarming. Almost half gargantuan, beautiful, harmless insect is of [Vermont’s] bumbleon the rise in Vermont. bee species are declinWith a wingspan ing or appear to have of up to six inches, the declined. And three or giant swallowtail is the four species have comsingle largest butterfly pletely disappeared.” in North America. And, Historical records so far as McFarland can show only 17 total tell, it never appeared bumblebee species in Vermont until 2010. have ever resided in A number of sightings Vermont. With several by “citizen scientists” previously common (as McFarland calls species, such as the amateur entomologists) rusty patched bumblewas sufficient reason to bee, on the wane, the commence a tracking numbers do not look program in the followgood for these imporStEVE PAriSE ing year. “Now,” he says, tant pollinators. “it’s breeding here all Any tomato grower over the place.” will tell you that a decline in the bumIn such southern states as Florida, blebee population is a serious matter. the caterpillar form of the giant swalThese insects vibrate their wings at lowtail can damage citrus crops. There’s about 400 Hz, which happens to be no such worry in Vermont, where it the frequency at which tomato plants’ feeds primarily on a weedy, native plant pollen is most easily dislodged from called prickly ash, which has little comtheir anthers. “Buzz pollination” is so mercial value. effective that producers of greenhouse What’s driving the Papilio cresphontomatoes commonly set up bumblebee tes north? It may be a gradual warmhives inside their facilities. ing of the local climate … so maybe it’s McFarland says he suspects that it’s true that most insect news is bad news. not just neonicotinoids that have been Insects — by virtue of their size, high “whacking” these bees, but also the in- reproduction rates and environmental creased presence of Old World (that is, sensitivity — tend to be biological bellEuropean) mites and gut parasites that wethers. All the more reason to heed encountered New World bumblebee what they’re telling us. m
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