Pollinator Conservation Resources - General

Improving pollinator habitat along roadsides and rights-of-way has many benefits, even beyond providing habitat for these important insects—including carbon sequestration and soil stabilization. Although this fact sheet is centered on California, many lessons are more broadly applicable, and can provide a useful jumping-off point for climate-smart habitat planning for other regions.

Given the many ways that climate change is likely to impact pollinators and plant-pollinator interactions, we propose multiple strategies to increase climate resilience for pollinators in natural areas. Although this fact sheet is centered on California, many lessons are more broadly applicable, and can provide a useful jumping-off point for climate-smart habitat planning for other regions.

Western monarchs need everyone’s help. In 2018, the population hit a new low, less than 29,000 butterflies—a loss of more than 99% since the 1980s. This Western Monarch Call to Action aims to provide a set of rapid-response conservation actions that, if applied immediately, can help the western monarch population bounce back from its extremely low 2018–19 overwintering size. Long-term conservation effort is needed to rebuild the western population of monarchs. The goal of this call to action is to identify actions that can be implemented in the short-term, to avoid a total collapse of the western monarch migration and set the stage for longer-term efforts to have time to start making a difference.

Land managers and land owners can bring wildflowers back to low diversity, established grass stands through a process known as interseeding. This publication provides guidelines and specific strategies for interseeding wildflowers into established grasslands and identifies species of wildflowers most likely to establish and persist in the Midwest and Great Plains.

Deciding which pesticide product to use can be a complex process. This detailed guide, produced jointly by the extension services of Oregon State University, Washington State University, and the University of Idaho, offers detailed guidance on how to select and apply insecticides. Extensive tables list the toxicity to bees of dozens of chemicals and how long after application they remain hazardous to bees in the field.

This pollinator habitat assessment guide is designed for a single site on a farm or agricultural landscape.

Milkweeds: A Conservation Practitioner’s Guide provides conservation professionals with information about optimizing milkweed seed production methods, offers guidance on incorporating milkweeds into restoration and revegetation efforts, and highlights milkweeds’ unique characteristics and value to wildlife. Native seed producers, restoration practitioners, land managers, monarch conservationists, gardeners, and landowners will all find this guide valuable.

This publication outlines the ecology of many native beneficial insect groups and highlights recommended strategies for conservation biological control. While native predator and parasitoid insects alone may not solve all of a producer’s pest problems, they can be an important part of an Integrated Pest Management system and contribute to reduced need for pesticides over time.