Friday, March 29, 2024

Buzz’ over to Acton Nature Center’s pollinator lecture Oct. 2

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You’re lounging in a lawn chair outside in your backyard and soaking up the warm afternoon sunshine, when you look down and notice a bee on a flower getting ready to pollinate.

It’s a simple act of nature and has been for centuries — but do you know just how important pollination is to our ecosystem?

Ecologist Randy Johnson will be hosting a lecture explaining how important the relationship is between pollinators and flowering plants, as well as discussing how to create a biodiverse habitat in your own backyard.

The lecture, Pollinators and Natives: An Ancient Marriage, will be held at the Opal Durant Acton Community Center, 6430 Smokey Hill Ct., at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 2.

Hosted by the Acton Nature Center, Johnson’s lecture will discuss how the relationship between pollinators and angiosperms (flowering plants) supports and sustains almost all terrestrial ecosystems on Earth.

“The coevolution between insects and plants is pretty profound,” Johnson said. “Without that relationship, we’re pretty much in trouble.”

One of the most “famous” insect and plant relationships, Johnson said, is the one between monarch butterflies and milkweed.

According to saveourmonarchs.org, monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed. In fact, the monarch butterfly is also known as the “milkweed butterfly.” The milkweed plant provides all the nourishment the monarch needs to transform the monarch caterpillar into the adult butterfly.

“What makes that relationship special to the insect is that there are chemical compounds in milkweed; they're called cardiac glycosides,” he said. “Naturally, we make heart medicine out of it. They have to have that compound to develop. If they don't get it, they'll die, so that's called a host plant — something that hosts that species, so it's about insect reproduction. Insects are the foundation of all ecosystems.”

Johnson’s presentation will also discuss methods for protecting, maintaining and creating a habitat to increase biodiversity of native flora and pollinators.

“When I was learning to drive from age 16, all the way up through my 40s, I can remember that you couldn't drive through town or especially to the country or anywhere without having to pull over and wash your windshield every single time because you had bugs splattered on your windshield,” Johnson said. “I (recently) went to Austin and back and that windshield was just as clean when I got home as when I started — and that's because our insect numbers are down. The diversity is down. This habitat loss, all these houses going up, they're building on top of fields and that field has flowers and flowers support insects and those insects support us, so this chain, we're in it. These plants are vital to our insect community and to everything else.”

He said many people don’t realize the “profundity of the relationship between pollinators and angiosperms,” and noted that the shortage of insects is something that will affect future generations to come.

“The plants that produce flowers, they represent one-sixth of all species on earth. That's not just plant species; that's everything we know, and that's not even all the plants, but that's about 12,000 of those worldwide of flowering plants and 86% of those are insect pollinated,” he said. “This is a worldwide issue. The relationship between pollinators and the angiosperms support and maintain almost all terrestrial ecosystems on earth. The ones that they don't influence are the Arctic and Antarctica, so all other continents, they support the whole ecosystem.”

Johnson earned a degree in wildlife and fisheries sciences from Texas A&M University. He is the past director of horticulture at Texas Discovery Gardens at Fair Park and served in the same capacity at The Dallas Zoo. He now runs his own business, Randy Johnson Organics. In addition, along with his sister, Julie, he grows and sells native plants from his nursery in Forney.

“Education is the key to everything," he said. "I'm a consultant. I have a native plant nursery. But first and foremost, I'm an educator. I'm passionate about what I do and I love discussing it with folks and talking about it, you know, sharing my experience with them and helping them to be more successful.”

An optional stroll through the Elizabeth Crockett Butterfly Garden at the Acton Nature Center will follow Johnson’s lecture.

Participants can also view the lecture via Zoom. To register for the Zoom link, send an email to actonnaturecenter@gmail.com.

Johnson added, “It's all about education. People have to know something's happening before they can participate.”