They're beautiful, Instagram-worthy, and the face of pollinator conservation. But butterflies might be the worst pollinators in your garden.

Discover why the most popular pollinators are actually the least effective, why your butterfly garden might be making things worse, and what you should be planting instead if you actually care about pollination.

This episode is going to ruffle some wings.

www.secretpollinators.com

KEY SOURCES

Butterfly vs. bee pollination effectiveness

• Barrios, B., Pena, S. R., Salas, A., & Koptur, S. (2016). Butterflies visit more frequently, but bees are better pollinators: the importance of mouthpart dimensions in effective pollen removal and deposition. AoB PLANTS, 8: plw001. DOI: 10.1093/aobpla/plw001 — in Angadenia berteroi, the most frequent visitor group was not the most important pollinator; proboscis width correlated with pollen transfer efficiency; skippers and non-skipper butterflies frequently revisited the same flowers, while long-tongued bees rarely returned to a previously visited flower.
• Jennersten, O. (1984). Flower visitation and pollination efficiency of some North European butterflies. Oecologia, 63, 80–89. DOI: 10.1007/BF00379789
• Ne'eman, G., Jürgens, A., Newstrom-Lloyd, L., Potts, S. G., & Dafni, A. (2010). A framework for comparing pollinator performance: effectiveness and efficiency. Biological Reviews, 85(3), 435–451. — the standard treatment of single-visit deposition, visitation rate, and effectiveness metrics.
• King, C., Ballantyne, G., & Willmer, P. G. (2013). Why flower visitation is a poor proxy for pollination: measuring single-visit pollen deposition. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 4(9), 811–818. DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.12074
• Willmer, P. (2011). Pollination and Floral Ecology. Princeton University Press.

Butterfly bush

• Tallamy, D. W. (2007, rev. 2009). Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants. Timber Press.
• Chalker-Scott, L. Butterfly Bush: Weed or Wonderful? Washington State University Extension.
• Oregon Department of Agriculture, Buddleja davidii noxious weed listing and approved sterile cultivar rules.
• Tallamy, D. W., & Shropshire, K. J. (2009). Ranking lepidopteran use of native versus introduced plants. Conservation Biology, 23(4), 941–947. DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01202.x

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