Wings Magazine

A beautiful, colorful garden bursts with a variety of blooms. In the background, a partially obscured, brightly-painted house stands. In the foreground is a Xerces Society pollinator habitat sign.

Nature Close to Home: Reimagining Gardens to Support Invertebrates

Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society, encourages gardeners to increase the diversity of native plants, ensure that there are places for insects to nest, and avoid using pesticides.

Bright yellow flowers reach upwards in this low-angle shot.

Managing Invertebrate-Friendly Gardens

Many Xerces Society members create wildlife gardens that are particularly hospitable to invertebrates. Here are three wonderful examples.

Two women walk through a garden with abundant, colorful flowers.

Bee City USA: Galvanizing Communities to Reverse Pollinator Decline

Collectively, urban and suburban areas have the potential of offering millions of acres of life-giving habitat to pollinators.

Landscaping outside an office building includes purple coneflower and goldenrod.

Mitigating the Effects of Heat on Urban Pollinators

Climate change will bring higher temperatures and greater extremes in weather, as well as increases in the frequency and intensity of heat waves. These variations will be exacerbated in cities in ways that may spell trouble for bees.

Close up view of freshwater mussels filtering water.

Are Freshwater Mussels in Hot Water?

Freshwater mussels play an important role in maintaining water quality in creeks. Climate change is altering water conditions, impacting the mussels and the fish on which they rely for part of their life cycle.

Brown-belted bumble bee nectaring on eastern redbud.

A Shifting Climate Creates Winners and Losers

We are already observing impacts on some species that are emerging earlier or whose distributions are changing, but it is difficult to characterize how insects as a whole will be impacted: some species will benefit while most will lose out.

A large creamy-yellow-and-black butterfly rests atop a pale purple flower.

The Striking Beauty of Oklahoma’s Butterflies

Oklahoma’s impressive butterfly fauna of more than 170 species includes the nation’s largest and the smallest, and representatives of all six major butterfly families.

The beautiful Adonis blue butterfly perches on the end of a stalk of grass. Its wings are positioned such that the ventral and dorsal sides are shown. The inner wing is bright blue, and the outside is speckled.

Ups and Downs of English Chalk Grasslands

About a third of Britain’s sixty resident butterfly species may be encountered on chalk grasslands, but it is a handful of blues—common, chalkhill, small, and Adonis—that may be most characteristic of this habitat.

A glowing green mason jar contains a few fireflies.

Keeping the Lights Burning: The Status of Fireflies in the United States and Canada

Fireflies are well loved, but they may be in trouble. Xerces will continue to seek a better understanding of these enchanting animals and how best to protect them.

A pollen-covered bee sits deep inside a bright-orange squash flower.

Can Robobees Solve the Pollination Crisis?

Focusing solely on crop pollination and failing to take the pollination of native plants into account may well lead to a deterioration in the plant communities that make up the very fabric of our environment.

A man stands among flowering shrubs that nearly dwarf and obscure him, and that are filled with nectaring monarchs!

Lincoln Brower: A Life Well Spent

Remembering a ground-breaking monarch researcher, a passionate advocate for monarchs, and a beloved member of the conservation community.

A red dragonfly perches atop a green leaf in a garden. A bit of blurred siding is visible in the background, indicating it is close to a house.

How Our Gardening Choices Affect the Health of Our Waterways

Pesticide Program Director Aimee Code shares thoughts on her garden, information about pesticide impacts to our watershed, and news about upcoming Xerces projects in this article from Wings Magazine.