Celebrating World Bee Day

Happy world bee day!! Today we are celebrating these hard little workers and remembering just how important their role in pollination is and indeed, how important our role of studying these interactions are.From the UN who designated 20 May as world bee day to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development:

“Bees and other pollinators, such as butterflies, bats and hummingbirds, are increasingly under threat from human activities. Pollination is, however, a fundamental process for the survival of our ecosystems. Nearly 90% of the world’s wild flowering plant species depend, entirely, or at least in part, on animal pollination, along with more than 75% of the world’s food crops and 35% of global agricultural land. Not only do pollinators contribute directly to food security, but they are key to conserving biodiversity. The goal is to strengthen measures aimed at protecting bees and other pollinators, which would significantly contribute to solving problems related to the global food supply and eliminate hunger in developing countries. We all depend on pollinators and it is, therefore, crucial to monitor their decline and halt the loss of biodiversity.”

From the the global youth biodiversity network (GYBN) who this year are including world bee day and the international day for biological diversity (IDB) as part of a week of action:

“The IDB takes place every year on May 22. It is the United Nations sanctioned international day for promoting awareness around biodiversity issues. This year, IDB offers an opportunity for us as a global community to re-examine our relationship to the natural world, reflect on challenges and accomplishments, and renew resolve in overcoming the environmental challenges facing the world today. Additionally, it is a call for hope, solidarity, and working together at all levels to build a future of life in harmony with nature.  The year 2020 is a pivotal year in environmental governance as we close out the UN Decade on Biodiversity 2011-2020 and welcome the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. It is also witness to the final period of the Strategic Plan 2011-2020 and its 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets. In the lead up to the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), IDB 2020 provides an opportunity to continue to build momentum toward the adoption of a strong and impactful Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.”

Field Guides: The Basics

Starting my postgraduate studies somehow equated to the start of my collection of field guides. An expensive hobby as it turns out, and one that has now taken up a fair bit of bookshelf space. But nonetheless, I love them. After a few years of collecting, I now know a little more about what I am actually looking at. What are the better authors? Who are the better illustrators? What publishers should I trust? What constitutes a ‘bargain’? But these are potential topics for further blog posts. For now I am asking the most fundamental question of all: What are the basic field guides I need when working in this region of the world? I will be focusing on what our lab studies: flowers and their potential pollinators. The best thing about this list is that all of them are available for loan by students of the lab from our herbarium.

Our lab is located in Pietermaritzburg, a city half way between the east coast and Drakensberg mountains of South Africa. Two books, both by Elsa Pooley, cover this region’s floral diversity.

• A Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Regions. Originally published in 1998, this book has yet to go out of date. So popular is it in KZN that many of us have resorted to simply calling the guide “Elsa”.
• Mountain Flowers: A Field Guide to the Flora of the Drakensberg and Lesotho. This book, originally published in 2003, is a little more specific in region. This mountain range is synonymous with speciation and endemism and plenty of interesting plants and pollinators are there to be explored!

A further book, by John Manning, covers a fair bit of the rest of South Africa.

• Field Guide to Wild Flowers of South Africa. This glossy, photograph-filled guide does a good effort to cover most of South Africa’s notable species. A new edition, published last year, 2019, is now available.

Now for those pesky pollinators…

• Field Guide to the Insects of South Africa. Billed as the “first comprehensive field guide to the insect fauna of South Africa”, one has the feeling that this book has bitten off more than it can chew. Which may be the case but, it still delivers, with succinct explanations and photos of more insects than one would imagine to fit in a field guide of such scope.
• Butterflies of South Africa: A Field Guide. Steve Woodhall‘s book covers all of the 671 species of butterfly in South Africa. Designed for quick and easy use in the field, this is a must for butterfly lovers. A shorter pocket guide is also available.
• Birds of Southern Africa. There are many bird guides relating to the region, but I have selected the Sasol guide (despite being a Newman’s man myself), which seems to be the most used and respected.

As I have mentioned, field guide collecting can go on forever but instead of getting too specific, I though I’d add two books which may be a little more specialist.

• Field Guide to Fynbos. Another guide by John Manning, this book covers the basics of the flora of the fynbos biome. Whilst our lab is physically based in the east of South Africa, much research is done in the west, incorporating the fynbos and Cape Floral Kingdom, another famed area of endemism.
• Moths of Southern Africa. Referred to as “Pinhey’s Moths” by the few of us interested, this book is big and bulky and chock fill of text, and thus far from being a field guide! Despite being published in 1975, this guide is still the best when it comes to moths. So much so that the excitement of finally discovering (and paying a small fortune for) my own copy was still felt a year on when scanning the cover for the picture above.

 

Text: Hannah Butler.