Insect Conservation

Boxelder Bugs (Boisea trivittata) Lancaster, PA, USA.

There’s beauty in these bugs. Their red eyes, uniform v lines where their wings cross their abdomen with red x’s. The repeating patterns when they huddle en masse on colder days. Or maybe their beauty comes from the fact that most people can’t see their beauty – but rather focus on these animals as pests. Even though they do no damage, and don’t harm us. They can congregate in our homes during winter and that qualifies them as pests. Maybe we need to learn to live with nature even in our homes. We are nature, made of the same stuff as these boxelder bugs.
They are named for the trees they suck sap from – boxelders. They don’t harm the trees, or us, or our houses, and are food for things we do care about like chipmunks and birds. They can be found outside all winter long.

Winter stonefly (Taeniopterygidae) Lancaster County, PA, USA
Winter stoneflies spend most of their lives in the clean water of the Climbers Run Stream. Clean because the Lancaster Conservancy protects most of the headwaters in Steniman and Trout Run Nature Preserves just upstream. The adults emerge in winter, and have glycerol sugars and proteins in their in their "blood", hemolymph really in insects, that act as antifreeze. This allows the adults to function in the cold winter months, when many other kinds of insects need to hunker down and ride the cold out. Stoneflies as a group are declining globally, but there is hope here at Climbers that the winter stoneflies will continue on as long as we protect the land they depend on for clean water and breeding habitat.

We traveled to California to see the remnants of the Western Monarch (Danaus plexippus) migration. We envisioned branches covered in orange, not as intense as the images we had seen from the mountains of the trasnvolcanic belt in Mexico, where the eastern population spend its winters. But we still expected to at least see more than we did. This trip was intentional - to see the western population before it disappears. The western population has seen steeper declines than the eastern and so we went west to experience the winter migration before it disappears. We didn't see eucalyptus trees dripping with butterflies. We did see one or two hundred individuals flittering through the canopy and occasionally landing on leaves and branches.
The lack of butterflies may be due to their decline caused by habitat loss and the use of noenicitinoid insecticides. From 1.2 million butterflies reported in 1997 to 12,260 reported this year - just 1% of the population present in 97. Or maybe the lack of overwintering monarchs is a behavioral modification. In a paper published in 2024, Dr David James reports that some of the western population are modifying their behavior by not migrating to overwintering grounds, but rather remaining reproductively active through the winter and staying further north of the traditional overwintering sites. This many be a behaviorial and physiologic adaptation to climate change. It is my hope that the western monarchs are changing their behavior so that the species remains on the planet.
Either way, the western monarch winter migration is significantly changing and rather than lament the lack of butterfly laden eucalyptus, we enjoyed the flight of the hundred individuals we did see which cemented our conviction to conserve what remains. Saving Monarchs

A revised version of the 🦋 has now been published by Red List of Threatened Species A correction of some minor details, you can find the new version with a new DOI reference (v1.1) https://doi.org/10.2779/1280375

You can update your copy with this link to the PDF document👉https://www.bc-europe.eu/documents/69442460159d9.pdf

Aphids (Family Aphididae) are usually viewed as pests. However, ecologically, they are incredibly important. They feed on plant sap, which is nutritionally poor. So they need to consume large quantities. As a result they excrete a sugar heavy honeydew that other insects, we consider beneficial, feed on. They themselves are food for a number of other organisms. Everything in nature is connected. Besides their ecological utility, they are special just because they are, and they have a special beauty about them. Taken in Lancaster, PA, USA.

A red admiral on its host plant, stinging nettle, in Lancaster, PA, USA

Northern green striped grasshopper from Lancaster, PA, USA. Grasshoppers play important roles in our ecosystems as herbivores and convert huge amounts of plant matter into animal matter sending that energy up the food chain.

A housefly on a stinkhorn fungi, Lancaster, PA USA. Plants reproduce by producing pollen which needs to be transported to other flowers in order for them to be fertilized which produces the seeds - the next generation - of plants. Insects play an important role in this process. Insects are attracted to flowers for the nectar they contain, and end up being transport vehicles for pollen as they move from flower to flower feeding on nectar.
Fungi reproduce by producing spores which are spread and grow into new fungi. Stinkhorn fungi produce slimy stinky fruiting bodies (pictured here) which attract flies (like this housefly). The flies spread the spores that become attached to their body in the process of feeding on the stinkhorn slime. Same concept different organisms. Nature is genius.

Eastern forktail damselfly (Ischnura verticals) Lancaster, PA, USA.