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Moths are more efficient pollinators than bees: new research
- throwaway892238 4y ago....and more efficient at eating my expensive clothes and my brassicas, so fuck moths and bring on the native bee, wasp and butterfly populations
- fsckboy 4y agohoney bees are not native to north america. Native Americans called them "white man's flies" (or should I not be learning history by watching westerns?)
- tomrod 4y agoHoney bees, sure, but there are plenty of native bee species to North America.
- ed25519FUUU 4y agoThee native bees are also about 100x better at pollinating than honeybees.
- kibwen 4y agoThat list of native bees includes bumblebees, in case anybody was conflating them with honeybees.
- timeon 4y agoSo that is why corn syrup is popular in US?
- boomboomsubban 4y agoCorn syrup is/was more used as a cheaper alternative for maple syrup and sugar. The relative unpopularity of honey probably has more to do with sugar plantations making sugar somewhat affordable.
- fsckboy 4y agopeople are sensitive on the honey topic, but since I learned how hard it was to distinguish natural honey from fake honey (you need NMR or something), I've just been wondering why don't we all just use cheap fake honey?
- throwaway892238 4y agoIf you want to support local farmers, buy local honey. You can go look at their bees if you don't believe them, and it supports the local economy. And, honestly, the range of flavors in real wildflower, orange blossom, clover, sage, buckwheat, etc honey is amazing. I don't use honey all that often, so I spring for the good stuff and drizzle it on fresh fruit, toast, tea, oatmeal, etc. It keeps basically forever so I have various little jars from places I've visited, and now and then I'll crack one open.
- operatingthetan 4y agoThere are many different species of moths and only a few eat clothing...
- zabzonk 4y agoindeed, and i would not like to exterminate any of them. but it is bit irritating when the wool pullover you put away in spring is completely buggered come autumn. they are difficult to get rid of.
- analog31 4y agoBeen there. Moth balls really work.
- aziaziazi 4y agoAny advice on usage? How many/ what placement do you do? Had you success with the wood ones (Cedar ?) or another type? Sanding any x times or not at all?
- operatingthetan 4y agoI think they are quite toxic so are meant to be placed in sealed containers with wool clothing. Then when you want to use the clothes clean them first to remove the residue.
- analog31 4y agoI use the ones that I think are naphthalene or something like that. I put them in a jar with a loose lid, and throw the jar into whatever bin I'm storing the clothes in. However, they are not innocuous: https://ldh.la.gov/assets/oph/Center-EH/envepi/Pest/Documents/Mothball_Fact_Sheet.pdf https://ldh.la.gov/assets/oph/Center-EH/envepi/Pest/Document...
- selcuka 4y agoNaphtalene is supposed to deter them. It doesn't smell pleasant but at least it sublimates, leaving no stains.
- bch 4y ago> fuck moths and bring on […] butterfly populations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieris_rapae https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieris_rapae
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nine_k 4y agoBees also produce honey in the process, basically for free. Everything in real life is a balancing act!
- foobarian 4y agoI mean, honey is pure carbs, so anything that produces so much excess of it can’t possibly be very efficient
- luxuryballs 4y agoI feel like it’s the opposite, the amount of energy packed into a single drop of honey makes it very efficient.
- bee_rider 4y agoThe energy taken by the bees and turned into honey is a cost from the flower’s point of view. I think you are looking at the efficiency of honey as a food, while the previous poster is looking at the efficiency of bees as pollinators?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- luxuryballs 4y agoit’s even more efficient for the bees who effortlessly and by their very nature produce enough that an invader can eat and be satisfied and yet still leave them with plenty! a veritable honey pot
- hotpotamus 4y agoHoneybees are domesticated, and as usual humans tend to select for animals that produce more. Even so they'd need to produce enough to hold the hive over winter.
- abrambleninja 4y ago
- Jon_Lowtek 4y agobeauty of the night colors in infrared light i wish i could see
- zabzonk 4y agoi think we need both, and others
- bboygravity 4y agoBiology in a nutshell.
- ianburrell 4y agoDon’t forget about hummingbirds. In the Americas, a lot of the pollinating job of moths is done by hummingbirds. Hummingbirds in the day, moths at night. My impression is that bees and moths/hummingbirds mostly work on different kinds of flowers that are evolved for the size and mouths of pollinators,
- 64operator 4y agoAs a gardener I have noticed that most types of insects tend to visit as many flowers as possible. None seem to show a vast preference. I know that's not what the data shows but it's my experience.
- rob74 4y agoI guess most flowers that people will put into their garden are those pollinated by, let's call them "bee-like pollinators", that are attracted to sweet-smelling and/or colorful flowers (although some, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddleja_davidii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddleja_davidii, have a preference for butterflies) . For instance, if you would plant one of these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphophallus_titanum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphophallus_titanum (that are pollinated by flies and carrion-eating beetles, and smell really yummy to them, but less so to us humans), your neighbors would probably complain...
- scns 4y agoBees prefer native flowers. Zero snark intended.
- 4y ago
- Maursault 4y agoI hate bug zappers. They should be illegal. All they do is kill moths and beetles. They are entirely ineffective against mosquitoes and other biting flies, and their otherwise indiscriminate killing disrupts pollination and generally throws the local environment completely out of balance.
- nonethewiser 4y agoInteresting. Never had one but I never thought about it. So there aren’t any more pesty bugs that it’s effective against?
- soperj 4y agoMosquitoes are pollinators, only the females suck blood, and that's only to produce eggs.
- peanutz454 4y agoWow! Learned something new today. I've been misinformed into believe that mosquitoes are useless, and we should wipe them out.
- wiseowise 4y agoThey are useless and harmful, there are far better pollinators than mosquitos.
- deafpolygon 4y agoThey are part of the ecosystem and are efficient pollinators. Without mosquito larvae, for example, aquatic animals such as tadpoles and such would have less to eat.
- Maursault 4y agoThere are 3500 species of mosquito, of which only about 200 bite humans. If we eliminated biting mosquitos, tad poles and such will still have plenty of non-biting mosquito larvae to eat. And compared to bees and moths, mosquitos are not nearly as efficient pollinators. If all biting mosquito species suddenly vanished, the effect on ecosystems would be negligible, and it would stop them from killing a million people a year. The benefits would far, far outweigh the risks.
- Syonyk 4y ago[flagged]
- Spivak 4y ago> run hundreds of watts of LED lights "Hundreds" is a pretty wide range but with that much wattage we're on the order of tens of thousands of lumens. That's a lot of light and would be ~10 flood lights.
- Syonyk 4y ago20-30 60-100W equivalent LED bulbs in outdoor fixtures around their house. At 10W per LED, that's 200-300W they run most of the night. I can read by their lights at night from a quarter mile away. I've tried. It's entirely absurd.
- boomboomsubban 4y agoThe huge difference between moths and butterflies is surprising as I consider moths nocturnal butterflies. I wonder what causes the difference.
- 64operator 4y agoMoths have mouthparts, butterflies generally don't. They have a specialized nectar sucking tube type organ with a "tongue" in it. Moths can rob flowers, which means they cut a small hole inside the bottom of the flower's nectar reservoir and then lap it up. Butterflies can't cut flowers.
- sohkamyung 4y ago>Moths have mouthparts, butterflies generally don't I'm not sure where you get that information. Butterflies also feed on nectar from plants, so they do have mouthparts. On another note, some butterflies (and maybe moths) are cannibals [1] and feed on their own caterpillars: "Some butterflies don’t only look like horror movie stars, but are horrors in themselves. Milkweed butterflies (Danainae) — the same subfamily that includes the regal monarch — are vampiric cannibals that use clawed feet to tear open their own caterpillars and mercilessly suck the guts out of them. But why devour your own offspring from the inside out? It’s an even stranger phenomenon known as kleptopharmacophagy." [1] https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/milkweed-butterflies-suck-out-caterpillar-guts https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/milkweed-butterflies-suck-out...
- 64operator 4y agoI was talking about nectar robbing by moths, butterflies don't do it. And butterflies only have a tube with a tongue, they don't have opposing jaws or a typical mouthpart. Moths are some of many nectar robbers who will cut a hole or slit in the bottom part of the nectar bearing parts of plants and drink that directly rather than playing by 'the rules' and going down the flower past the reproductive organs. Thus getting the benefit of the nectar without abiding by the "rules" that ensure the plant's pollentation.
- whiddershins 4y agoSo with all of this talk for years about colony collapse and food shortages yet moths were doing the bulk of the pollinating the whole time? Or am I missing something. Not that colony collapse doesn’t worry me, it does. But if I was being baselessly told to fear agriculture production issues, I am super mad.
- tptacek 4y ago(This is a hobbyhorse of mine...) At least in North America, the "colony collapse" stuff was a livestock phenomenon more than it was a wildlife/ecology issue. Honey bees aren't native to the US; if you see a honey bee in your back yard, there's a pretty good chance that somebody owns it.
- sidewndr46 4y agoSo what species are the native pollinators here in North America?
- tptacek 4y agoThere's lots of them, including a huge variety of bees, but many (most?) of those bees are solitary, and aren't battery-farmed the way honey bees are.
- sidewndr46 4y agoI don't know what they are called, but the big bees that like to burrow into pine and other wood I have tried to make a home for. They aren't aggressive at all so I don't mind them buzzing about. Every time I get a decent population we get some cold weather and I don't see them again for a long time.
- filoeleven 4y agoCarpenter bees. They are pretty neat for sure. If anyone has issues with them boring into buildings, there’s an easy solution: stuff a paper bag with some plastic bags and hang it up nearby. The bees will think it’s a wasp’s nest and vacate the area within a few days. I know someone who does this every year and it works like a charm. Which, I suppose in a way, it is.
- dang 4y agoAll: please respond to the information in the article rather than just your feelings about moths and bees. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- throwawaaarrgh 4y ago[flagged]
- mythrwy 4y agoThe article states moths are more efficient pollinators _at night_. But many types flowers close at night (tulips and hibiscus for instance). So presumably moths don't pollinate those and we still need daytime pollinators.
- yellowapple 4y agoRelatedly, the article states that more than 80% of pollination happens during the day. I reckon that'd probably be higher if we hadn't been so hellbent on decimating daytime pollinator populations.
- rob74 4y agoWell, we are also hellbent on decimating nighttime pollinators (probably even more than daytime), as well as most other types of insects (except maybe cockroaches).
- coding123 4y agoAnd check out the bee-fly too: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/bee-flies-cute-bee-mimic-with-a-dark-side.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/bee-flies-cute-bee-mimic-with... Lots of pollinators out there.
- rob74 4y agoTo me, the most fascinating pollinator is the hummingbird hawk-moth (which, interestingly enough, is a daytime pollinator): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird_hawk-moth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird_hawk-moth. There's not a lot of similarity in photos, but if you see one, its sound and the way it hovers around flowers is just like a miniature hummingbird.
- cryptonector 4y agoWe have hummingbird moths here in Texas. They're not afraid of humans, so I've seen them just a few feet from me several times. They look and act and fly just like hummingbirds -- you have to look closely to see that they're not birds, then you'll notice the antennae, and the lack of feathers, and the "beak" being flexible.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y agoThis phys.org article says: > Moths are more efficient pollinators than bees, oh and bramble is important. The underlying paper is an easy enough read that you probably don't need phys.org: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281810 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... It says: - Many different species rely on bramble [e.g. raspberry, blackberry, etc...] - Bramble fruits can grow twice as large if the flower was visited by multiple insects, which improves bramble's ability to support its many species - Moths are an outsized contributor to the pollination of bramble, and therefore to supporting those many species - So conservation efforts should focus on things that uniquely help moths, like limiting light pollution Given the prevalence of pollinators that are hyper specialized to what they pollinate, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that general purpose pollinator efficiency is both a useless metric, and not what was studied here.
- 11235813213455 4y agoI often watch butterflies, and they really suck flowers deep and long using their long straw-like antennas, more than bees. Note: flies, ants, and all kind of insects also "pollinate"
- rob74 4y agoThe nectar that butterflies suck is just the "bait" that flowers use to lure insects. What's more important is how much pollen they pick up in the process.
- pvaldes 4y agoEcology. We are always scratching the surface. Are spiders vegetarian? Yep. Some are. Do European butterflies migrate like the monarch butterflies do?, yep. Do mosquitoes eat diseases? yep. Do they eat other mosquitoes? Double yep... Ad infinitum
- cryptonector 4y agoThere's also hummingbird moths. I've seen more of those than regular hummingbirds.
- cryptonector 4y ago> However, due largely to climate change and intensive agriculture, there is a widespread decline in wild pollinators. Source?