Pollinators are in serious trouble

The troubled life of honeybees gets a lot of media attention, but many other pollinators are in serious trouble, according to Eric Mader, assistant pollinator program director with The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. "In some cases, their fates are potentially worse," he says. "For example, a number of our roughly 50 native bumblebee species are in precipitous decline, with a couple of species likely having gone extinct in recent years, and a few other possibly teetering on the brink of extinction. "Similarly, the once ubiquitous monarch butterfly Danaus plexippus has declined to some of the lowest population levels ever documented since scientists first began tracking their numbers in the 1970s."

These alarming declines in pollinators motivated the society, founded in 1971 and named after the extinct Xerces blue butterfly, to author the just-released book, "Attracting Native Pollinators: Protecting North America's Bees and Butterflies." The 384-page guidebook features chapters that cover why you should care about pollinators, biology of pollination, threats to pollinators and how you can help pollinators.

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/06/11/2364504/decline-of-butterfl…