By Sarah Barney
Pollination is a crucial process for everyone’s wellbeing; around one third of our food requires animals’ pollination, the process in which some flowering plants reproduce. Pollinators are the animals, typically insects, that move pollen from one flower to another. Common pollinators in Ohio are bees, hummingbirds, moths, butterflies, flies, beetles, and bats.
Populations of pollinating insects and other animals are on the decline primarily due to habitat loss from human development, agriculture, and mining. Having pollinator-friendly yard provides a safe space for growing populations and to pollinate your garden.
How you can help them:
Native plants are super important for pollinators. They have been dependent on each other for thousands of years, and some pollinators have become picky. Like Monarch caterpillar, who only eats milkweed.
Having a diverse garden is important for attracting a variety of pollinators. This means diversity on all levels: color, size, flower shape, and mainly, when the flower blooms. To please the pollinators, it’s important to have blooms as much as you can.
Woody foliage provide habitats for a lot of pollinators, like solitary bees and butterflies. They also typically bloom in the spring which helps diversify your yard.
It’s easier said than done but decreasing your use of harmful chemicals is one of the best things you can do for pollinators (and other environmental issues). The herbicides kill pollinating plants and the insecticide kill pollinators. There are a variety of nonchemical alternatives.
Most “weeds” you have in your lawn are actually not weeds, but rather important native pants. Clovers or prunellas or creeping thyme.
The last thing you can do is provide pollinators with water. The easiest way is to add rocks to your birth bath. The bees or butterflies will land on the rocks and drink from the bath.
Further Reading and Sources
5 Best Ways to Make Your Garden Pollinator Friendly from Tufts
Why is Pollination Important? from the U.S. Forest Service
Organic Gardening and Alternatives to Pesticides by Steven Spence
By Sarah Barney
Dr. Rich Bradley is a trained ornithologist; that’s what he went to graduate school to study at the University of New Mexico. He went to work on rock wrens, a common bird in New Mexico. He wanted to compare the prey and predator population dynamics, but the wrens forage under huge boulders, so there was no way to sample their food. After some tribulation, one of Dr. Bradley’s committee members suggested he switch to scorpions. They ate a lot of the same things, they are easy to find, and he could start right away. So that’s what Dr. Bradley did. The transition from scorpions to spiders was easy, since they are both arachnids.
Dr. Bradley was never afraid of spiders. He was an outdoor kid, always looking for lizards and snakes, or anything creepy crawly.
“I didn’t have any particular interest in spiders, but I always liked insects or arthropods that looked cool.” It wasn’t until Dr. Bradley’s graduate project that ignited his spider curiosity and passion.
“It’s their otherness,” he describes. “There is no way to relate to how their life works.” Spiders go throughout life with a clear purpose, but it isn’t obvious what that purpose is.
They perceive the world through vibrations and can sense things in the ground and air. They know something is coming from a combination of shadows and the footfall vibrations. When wasps approach to eat them, spiders can feel the beat of their wings in time to hide or defend themselves.
Not only do spiders sense the vibrations, but they can also interpret them. If something lands in their web, spiders can tell if it is prey or a predator. Not only how big it is, but also if it’s dangerous, if they should trap it up in silk, or can they run up and eat it.
“Spiders are not dumb,” Dr. Bradley says sincerely. “They just have a different kind of intelligence.”
Behavior is mostly ingrained. They have instincts about how to react and assess their environment. For example, the bolas spider, one of the most unusual in the orb weaving group. Unlike most of the orb weavers, they don’t build typical webs. They spin a line that hangs out like a trapeze with a drop of glue-like material at the bottom, and they wait for prey. But what are the chances that a tasty insect will fly directly into the ball of glue? Fairly slim.
Yet somehow, male moths kept getting caught and eaten by the bolas spider. After further research, it turns out that these spiders release the same sex pheromones as the female moths. They exude the chemical and it coats their bodies, sort of like a lotion. The male moths think they are about to mate and fly closer and closer until the spider flicks out the line web and the ball of glue wraps around them.
Besides trying to understand how spiders see the world, spider scientists are producing a lot of important research. Dr. Bradley is cataloging the biodiversity of spiders across Ohio, what habitats are best, and what kind of threats are affecting rare spiders. There is also a lot of medical research being done about spider’s venom. Being bit by a spider is painful, but that means that it affects pain receptors in a very specific way. Studying how the venom senses the pain receptors can help us with disease medication and pain relief. Their silk webs are also important to study, as the biomaterial can be used for lightweight bulletproof vests.
Though Dr. Bradley isn’t scared of spiders by any means, he understands why people would be.
“Spiders are just odd. Maybe it’s because they are nocturnal,” Dr. Bradley speculates. It could be all the legs, or not knowing much about them. Dr. Bradley says that when people come to him with a fear of spiders, he teaches them about the critters. Most of the time, people leave the conversation feeling less scared.
He encourages people leave spiders in their house in places that won’t bother you. They help with pest control, so if they are in your closet or attic, then that means they are eating other things you don’t want.
When Dr. Bradley sees a spider in his house, he gets close enough to see what it is. If it’s a unique spider, he’ll capture it and take some pictures. But most of the time, he puts it in a container and takes it back outside.
Dr. Bradley is an Associate Professor Emeritus at the Ohio State University. His areas of expertise are birds, behavior, ecology, scorpions, and of course, spiders.
By Sarah Barney
What do you put in the recycling bins? Paper? Glass? All grades of plastic? Everywhere has recycling: stores, the side of streets, and at the Nature and Wildlife Center. Recycling has the potential to reduce carbon emissions and keep millions of pounds of trash out of the landfills, and it appears to be an easy individual climate-friendly action that people can do. But in reality, it ranks low on environmental impact. Recycling programs differ depending on the place, and it's confusing. This confusion, as you may have assumed, is exclusive to plastics. Only 11% of plastic is recycles, whereas 25% of glass and almost all paper is recycled.
The issue with plastics stem from the different grades of plastic, which depends on their composition and strength. The grade is indicated by the number in the Mobius Loop, the triangular three arrow symbol. Some plastics are food grade, meaning they are safe to come in contact with food or drink. Other plastics are extremely strong like CD containers or auto parts, but not all grades of plastic are recyclable. Just because there is the Mobius Loop on the bottom on plastic products doesn’t mean it can be recycled.
The myth that all plastic is recyclable originated from the 1960’s. Before that, plastic was utilized for making long-lasting products, like pianos or radios, more affordable. In the 60’s however, the plastic industry began to create single use plastics, and consequently, taught people how to litter. Instead of decreasing the number of single-use plastics, the plastic industry told people they weren’t throwing away the plastics correctly and they needed to recycle. Yet, that didn’t solve the problem.
When you recycle in a municipality, the trash is sent to a Material Recovery Facility This is where the recycling is broken up into categories (paper, metal, glass, and plastic) and sold to different facilities depending on the material. Aluminum and glass can be remelted and reused repeatedly without losing its strength, making it a continuous loop. On the other hand, plastics weaken when they are remelted. This means that they can only be recycled once and are usually turned into products like clothes or carpet, ending the cycle. There are other plastics like bubble wrap, Saran wrap, or plastic bags that can’t be recycled at all. They go straight to the landfill.
If you’re feeling frustrated and hopeless, you’re not alone. But there are other individual climate-friendly actions that you can do that have a greater impact.
How Useful is Recycling, Really? - E.A. Cruden
Recycling! Is it BS? - How to Save a Planet
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Environmental Protection Agency
By Sarah Barney
As part of the recent renovations, the Lake Erie Islands Nature and Wildlife Center added a geological section explaining how the South Bass caves were formed and human interactions with the island’s rocks. Most recently, the center added an animation projected onto the wall, illustrating how exactly the islands formed.
In the Silurian and Devonian periods (500-350 million years ago), Ohio was covered by an ancient, tropical ocean, forming Pelee Limestone, Put-in-Bay Dolomite, and Tymochtee Shaly Dolomite. These rock formations were tilted when an island arc rammed into North America, which formed the Appalachian Mountains.
For hundreds of thousands of years, glaciers and river eroded and carved the bedrock to form deep valleys and the Lake Erie basin. The Wisconsinan Glacier from the most recent Ice Age in the Pleistocene epoch, around 10,000 years ago, advanced and receded many times, forming the Lake Erie basin as we know it. The glacier movement back and forth left well-developed beaches, instead of rocky cliffs like those you might find in Maine. The Lake Erie basin was finally filled with water a few thousand years after the Wisconsinan Glacier receded due to the crust rebounding from the release of the weight of the glacier.
The cave formation is another interesting story. Under the Put-in-Bay Dolomite formation is the Tymochtee Shaly Dolomite, where the caves formed. In the shale, there was a pocket of anhydrite, a mineral made of calcium sulfate. Water from the lake moved through the shale and into the anhydrite pocket. This transformed the mineral into gypsum, which is the same chemical composition of anhydrite with water.
The addition of water and formation of gypsum increased the volume of the pocket by 63 percent. Water kept leaking into the gypsum and eventually dissolved it, leaving a hole in the rock layers. With nothing holding up the rocks, they collapsed. An empty space was created on the top layer, and the caves formed around the fallen rock. When the caves were formed, they would have been donut shaped. From the surface, they look like a circular depression in the ground.
Lake Erie and the caves have been relatively stable for the past 3500 years, with exception of changing weather patterns.
We were able to add the animation due to the support from Ottawa County Community Foundation, Andy Nash and Mark Jones from the Ohio Geologic Survey, Dr. Charles Herdendorf, and Orange Peel Productions. The geologic display is thanks to Dr. Herdendorf, Amy Huston and the Randolph J. and Estelle M. Dorn Foundation. Both exhibits add to our holistic approach to teaching visitors about the thriving ecosystem that is Lake Erie and its islands.
Ohio Department of Natural Resources - Lake Erie Geology
By Sarah Barney, featured image from Brian Alford
Most people dread mayfly season, the season of slippery roads, clogged gutters, and the constant smell of dead fish. It’s undeniable that they take over the Lake Erie coast and the islands for a few weeks in June, but they are crucial for a healthy ecosystem and sharing nutrients. To understand their importance, you must first understand their extremely short lifecycle.
The mayfly starts its life at the bottom of the lake. The female lays the eggs in still water, and they will either settle to substrate or attach to a submerged rock. The eggs are small and round, depending on the species. Females can produce less than 50 eggs or more than 10,000 eggs. After around two weeks, the eggs hatch entering the second stage.
Once the egg hatches, the mayfly becomes a nymph. They can spend up to two years at the bottom of the lake, but the average is a year. During this time, they molt up to 50 times as they keep growing. They eventually find their way to the surface of the lake and emerge as the next stage.
As they move from the water to the air, the skin on their back splits down the middle to make room for their wings. They fly to find terrestrial shelter, and molt one last time to bring them into the final, adult stage, the Imago. Mayflies are the only insect that molts after growing wings.
The only purpose of an adult is to mate. At dusk, the males fly up and down and side to side repeatedly over the lake, waiting for the females to join. Eventually, the males will approach the females and mating begins. After, the male flies off and dies, and the female releases the eggs and dies.
Mayflies are a vital link in the freshwater food web. They are loved by fish, frogs, birds, turtles, and snails. Because they are bottom dwellers for most of their life, they bring necessary nutrients from the bottom of the lake to the surface as they become an adult. The animals that eat the adult mayflies get nutrients they have little access to. Furthermore, when mayflies die, they provide energy and nutrients to algae and other aquatic plants.
Along with being important for our Lake Erie ecosystem, mayflies are just plain cool. They are ancient insects; first evolving 100,000 years before dinosaurs. They are so old that they are the only insect that has two stages of adulthood. And they are used for monitoring water quality in the lake. Their presence (or lack thereof) is an indicator of the health and diversity of the lake.
To help destroy the stigma and celebrate mayfly season, the Nature and Wildlife Center is sponsoring the Eat a Mayfly Challenge. For this, tag us in a video of you eating a mayfly on Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram with the hashtag #EataMayfly. We would love to see you try!
The Mayfly Life Cycle by the Tweed Foundation
Basis/Purpose - Mayflies of North America by Purdue University
Mayfly by Britannica
By Sarah Barney
If you visited the center from May 16th to May 26th, you may have seen Janet Stearns perched on top of the newly installed turtle pond, painting a mural. The quintessential scene of an Ohioan wetland only took Stearns ten days, though she painted for twelve to fifteen hours a day.
Stearns has always been connected to the Lake Erie Islands. Her family has had a house on Middle Bass islands for generations, starting with a steam ship captain and US marshal from Cleveland. She spent childhood summers running around the islands. Her connection to Middle Bass solidified when she painted a mural at the General Store, ensuring that her name will be remembered.
It was this mural, and the one at the Fishbowl on Put-in-Bay, that made Renée Fultz, Director, advocate for Stearns to be the muralist at the Nature and Wildlife Center. Fultz and the board of directors wanted a local artist, and Stearns’ work can be found all over the Lake Erie Islands and mainland: Ashtabula, North Bass, and several in Geauga County, where Stearns worked as a bus driver for 30 years. Stearns specializes in wildlife painting and presented past work to the Board. Without debate, Stearns was chosen to paint the murals at the nature center.
While the painting process only took ten days, Stearns spent a few weeks preparing. The birds are true to size, so she had to measure the wall, calculate the proper proportions, and sketch out the mural. It was a long process, but worth it.
Stearns’ favorite part of the process was all the people she met.
“It was fun!” she exclaimed. “Everyone was so kind.”
Painting the mural wasn’t easy. She had to lay in awkward positions, maneuver her way around the waterfall, and kneel on rocks.
“My knees are still black and blue,” Stearns said smiling.
One day, Stearns was painting during the weekly yoga class, and after seeing the positions Stearns was in, the yoga teacher invited her to join the class.
“I got up and painted another three hours after that!” she said.
The mural was completed May 26th and fit in beautifully above the pond.
Cabin fever, made more intense this year because of the pandemic, seems to be affecting children worse than adults. But the cure for feeling cooped up is simple. Get outside!
There’s nothing like the colors of autumn to get you ready for cooler weather ahead, especially in Ohio. Keeping children connected to nature instead of the internet is easy when you live in the Buckeye State.
Kids love hands-on activities, so enjoy these experiences with your little ones:
With squirrels scurrying about to gather up nuts and chipmunks getting ready for a long nap, your backyard continues to be a home for birds and wildlife.
Set up a few birdhouses and feeders and stock up on winter wild birdseed. Feed the regulars and those visitors that are flying south for the winter.
Hands-on activity: Make a list of all the types of birds you see, create a folder and show the kids how to draw pictures of their favorites.
Ohio’s climate falls in U.S. plant hardiness zones 5 and 6, which means your outdoor plants usually die after that first hard freeze. Have your children help bring your garden indoors for winter.
Another option? A hydroponic garden for growing herbs, small vegetables, and flowers. Hydroponic systems are available in various sizes -- you can place them anywhere in the house.
Kids will enjoy seeing fast-growing and aromatic leafy greens, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs... they may even be eager to eat them!
Hands-on activity: Take a picture of the new growth every few days, print the photos, and then help your children create a growth calendar.
Fall is the best time for driving through the countryside -- the scenery is breathtaking! Check out the freshly-plowed farmlands with rich brown soil ready for winter’s sleep. Stop at a pumpkin farm, pick apples, navigate a corn maze, and jump on a hayride. Visit wetlands and nature preserves around Lake Erie.
Enjoy the reds, yellows, and oranges and crisp fall lake air at Middle Bass and Kelleys Islands at the Lake Erie Islands. See how many native trees you and your children can identify.
Don’t forget about the six nature preserves on South Bass Island. Scheeff East Point Nature Preserve orffers amazing views of Lake Erie and the surrounding islands. It's a bird lover's paradise where you can also enjoy shoreline fishing. Massie Cliffside Preserve has a dock for fishing and a great trail for hiking.
Children will love the Put-in-Bay StoryWalk. The trail has 17 storyboards posted along the path featuring pages from their favorite books.
They’ll be eager to move ahead on the trail to read the next page of Noisy Birds or The Curious Garden. They’ll also want to return again and again since the Erie Islands Library changes out the books every few weeks.
When you return home, take a step back in time and show your children the joy of jumping into a pile of leaves. It’s a great way to motivate them to rake the yard.
Hands-on activity: Have your kids collect colorful, variously-shaped leaves such as those from maple and oak trees. Gather up acorns, seeds, twigs, pebbles, and pinecones. Bring along a bag for your child’s treasures. Better take an umbrella, too …
Treehouses aren’t just for summer -- they’re fun to sit in all year long. Build a deck or house around a large canopy tree; the leaves may fall directly on you and the kids!
Treehouses are fun for adults, too. There may even be room up there for the family to enjoy some quality time together.
Hands-on activity: A treehouse can be a great place in fall to talk to your children about how plants get ready to survive in cold weather.
Instead of logging onto a computer, teach your children the thrill of throwing a log onto the bonfire. Sitting around a campfire on a brisk, cool evening beats a night in front of the television or computer anytime.
Hands-on activity: Teach your children how to toast marshmallows. All you need are some long sticks, a bag of jumbo marshmallows, and maybe a few chocolate bars and graham crackers.
Autumn is the perfect time to enjoy nature with your little ones.
Take pictures of the visitors at the bird feeder, build a growth calendar featuring your indoor garden, jump in a pile of leaves, talk about trees in your treehouse, or share s’mores by the fire. Those are just a few examples. Be creative!
To beat cabin fever, you want to get as much fresh air and exercise before Ohio’s inclement weather sets in for the winter.
Andres Marten is a travel and landscape writer who lives in Ohio. He’s constantly on the move looking for the best places for exploring or living near nature’s finest.
Article provided by Lawnstarter