NEWS
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
B3
Keeping wild bees and wild grasslands healthy
Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
Sandy DeBano waded
through Zumwalt Prairie’s
tall, dry bunchgrass and
swept her long, white net
deftly through late July’s
fading fl owers. “Got ‘em”
she said. The net held trea-
sures: two bumble bees,
a sweat bee and multiple
small fl ies — all late-season
pollinators. The catch would
help defi ne how fi re and
grazing practices may ben-
efi t some and imperil other
wild pollinators in grass-
land ecosystems on The
Nature Conservancy’s Zum-
walt Prairie Preserve. “The
outcome will help TNC to
manage grazing as well as
fi re and invasive plants, so
that pollinators thrive and
grasslands fl ourish,” said
TNC Zumwalt Prairie Proj-
ect Manager Jeff Fields.
Dr. DeBano, an Ore-
gon State University Asso-
ciate Professor of Wild-
life Ecology, specializes in
wild pollinators. More spe-
cifi cally, she studies how
human management affects
bees, butterfl ies, beetles and
other tiny invertebrates, and
the ecosystem services they
provide.
Most of us know that
honeybees — the imported
European honeybee that
pollinates many commercial
crops is in trouble. Disease
and the mysterious colony
collapse disorder continue
to take their toll.
But many native bee
species are also strug-
gling. These wild pollina-
tors ensure our backyard
garden’s fecundity, and the
overall health and produc-
tivity of grassland ecosys-
tems for wildlife, people
and livestock.
The Nature Conservancy
is collaborating with Ore-
gon State University at its
Zumwalt Prairie Preserve
to study how wild bees
respond to fi re, invasive
plants and grazing. “The
study’s overall goal is to
increase our understanding
of how these factors affect
native bees so that we don’t
accidentally hurt bees while
we are managing the prairie
for the other things we care
about,” Fields said.
The three-year-study on
TNC’s preserve kicked off
in the spring of 2018, and
will continue through 2020.
Its $660,000 budget is sup-
ported by the Foundation
for Food and Agriculture’s
Pollinator Health Fund,
with additional contribu-
tions from The Nature Con-
servancy, and Oregon State
University. It’s part of the
continuing research on the
Zumwalt Prairie Preserve.
“Not all the results from
the summer of 2018 are tab-
ulated yet,” DeBano said.
But previous work at the
Zumwalt provides a glimpse
of what they’ll fi nd.
“Bumble bees are one of
the most abundant types of
bee pollinator,” said Heidi
Schmalz, TNC Zumwalt
Prairie biologist. “They
comprise about 30% of all
the bee species out here.
They are really important on
the Zumwalt.”
For example, there are
only two known pollina-
tors of the rare, threatened
Spalding’s Catchfl y. Both
are bumble bees — the yel-
low bumble bee and the
white-shouldered bumble
bee, according to a 2012
study by DeBano and TNC
ecologist Rob Taylor. While
other insects may help polli-
nate the Spalding Catchfl y’s
complex fl owers, only these
THE ONE
STOP SHOP
FOR YOUR
HVAC...
Bumblebees comprise about 30% of pollinators on the
Zumwalt Prairie Preserve. They are semi-solitary bees that
prefer cooler, aspen-rich sites and unglazed areas according
to research by Dr. Sandy DeBano and others.
Photos by Ellen M Bishop
Sandy DeBano inspects her net for pollinating insects.
two long-tongued bumble
bees were observed gather-
ing pollen from the deeply
indented blossoms.
Across North America,
bumble bee numbers are
decreasing, according to
the Xerces Society, a sci-
ence-based nonprofi t ded-
icated to pollinator and
invertebrate conservation.
Some bumble bee species
have experienced rapid and
dramatic declines. Accord-
ing to Xerces Society data,
about 28% of all North
American bumble bees
are facing some degree of
extinction risk. One spe-
cies, the western bumble
bee was the most abundant
bumble bee in Oregon until
the 1990s when an imported
viral disease decimated their
populations. They vanished
from the Willamette Valley,
and were considered virtu-
ally extinct across Oregon.
But there’s good news
for these bumble bees on
Zumwalt. “We found our
fi rst western bumble bee in
2006 when we fi rst started
surveying pollinators on the
Zumwalt,” DeBano said.
“Since then, we’ve contin-
ued to fi nd them. We seem
to have a pretty good popu-
lation out there.”
One likely reason west-
ern bumble bees survived
here,” DeBano said, is that
the disease that decimated
the bumble bees on the west
side never made it over the
Cascades. “Our work at the
Zumwalt was the fi rst to
show there are fairly healthy
populations of these bees
east of the Cascades,” she
said. Still, the western bum-
ble bee is fairly rare. “It’s
about 1 to 2% of all the bum-
ble bees out here on Zum-
walt. Not super common.
But it could be an import-
ant pollinator for a certain
plant species.” A study of
pollen that the western bum-
ble bees carry on their legs
will help DeBano and her
students determine which
plants these rare bumble
bees frequent.
Bumble bees are only one
of many types of pollinators
on Zumwalt. Sweat bees —
so named because they seem
to be attracted to the mois-
ture of human sweat — are
relatively small bees nearly
equal in importance to their
larger cousins. Late in the
year, they are often more
abundant. Sweat bees may
PARTS S &
SERVICES
MAINTENANCE
Not all pollinators are bees. This hover fl y does its fair share of
pollinating fl owers on Zumwalt Prairie.
‘BUMBLE BEES ARE ONE OF
THE MOST ABUNDANT TYPES
OF BEE POLLINATOR.’
Heidi Schmalz, TNC Zumwalt Prairie biologist
have striped abdomens, or
be greenish or bluish with
an attractive metallic sheen.
“They are beautiful bees,”
DeBano said. “They live in
solitary nests in bare, com-
pacted ground in contrast
to bumble bees who nest in
abandoned rodent burrows
and other cavities, or at the
April 21st 2019
Join Us to Celebrate Easter!
The Big Brown Church
Easter Service 11:00am
Music with
Gail Swart & Sue Wagner
Pastor Archie Hook
Enterprise Community
Congregational Church
All are welcome here
301 NE First St., Enterprise
bigbrownchurch.org
ENTERPRISE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
85035 Joseph Hwy, Enterprise • 541-426-3449
www.enterprisechristianchurch.org
Thursday
Maunday Thursday Communion 7:00pm
Friday
Community Good Friday Service 7:00pm
Sunday
Sunrise Service at 6:30am
Easter Worship Service at 9:00am
Easter Celebration
Joseph Baptist Church
Sunday, April 21st, 9:30 am
Brunch in Hall
10:30 am Celebration Services!
Energy Community Service.
Thursday 5:30pm
Easter Brunch
at 9:30am
Easter Service
Begins at 11am
Hwy 82 Lostine • Info: 541-398-0547
Blog:dancingfaith.blogspot.com
Grace Lutheran
Church
Easter Services 9:00 am
with Holy Communion
Breakfast to follow
409 West Main •Enterprise
Christ Covenant
Church
Good Friday Services 5:30pm
Easter Sunrise Service 8:00 am
at Evans Park
Easter Sunday Breakfast 9:00 am
Sunday Worship 11:00 am
Fellowship Feast Sunday 4:00pm
Eagle Cap Chalet’s
Pastor Terry Tollefson
Email: pastorterrancetollefson@hotmail.com
Church Office: 541-263-0505
723 College Street, Lostine OR
72
Easter Sunday April 21st
Easter Breakfast at 8:00
Celebration Services at 10:00
"Christ Raised to Life!"
541-432-3102
Ed Staub & Sons
Maunday Thursday
Jim Higgins, Pastor
Coffee cake, rolls, muffins from 8:00-9:00 a.m.
josephumc.org
201 East Hwy 82 Enterprise, OR 97828
541-426-0320
Lostine Presbyterian Church
(Nursery provided)
Joseph United
Methodist Church
INSTALLATION
base of grass tussocks —
not compacted soils.”
A 2012 study by DeBano
and others found that areas
with higher grazing inten-
sity saw declines in bumble
bees and increases in sweat
bees. The probable reasons:
bumble bees avoided areas
where grazing had removed
many of the fl owers they
needed for pollen. But the
sweat bees were attracted to
the grazed areas because for
them, the more compacted
and exposed soils provided
prime nesting habitat.
‘”In the current study,
we’ll be looking at these
questions in more detail,”
DeBano said.
Could sweat bees, which
increase in grazed areas, do
the pollinating work of bum-
ble bees that avoid them?
“Sweat bees generally visit
fl owers that have different
shapes and sizes than the
fl owers visited by bumble
bees. We don’t know that
sweat bees could step in to
fi ll their roles,” DeBano
said.
There’s much still to
learn about the relations
between wild pollinators,
grazing, fi re and invasive
plants. How do the fl ower-
ing species differ between
burned and unburned areas?
What effect does this have
on both pollinators and
grazing animals including
deer, elk, and cattle? Does
fi re directly effect pollina-
tors? Do invasive plants
support or diminish spe-
cifi c pollinators? And how
do pollinators, fi re, invasive
plants, and grazing all inter-
act here?
These and other ques-
tions will be addressed
during the upcoming, sec-
ond year of the study.
“Wild pollinators are
important,” Fields said.
“Livestock grazing is also
an important and a very
prevalent use of this land-
scape. If we are going to
have both thrive here on the
Zumwalt, we need to under-
stand all this better.”
301 S. Lake St. Joseph • Cherie Dearth, Pastor
Happy
Easter