A Buzz in the Meadow

by Dave Goulson

  10. Hothouse Flowers

  1. Probably the best-known mammalian pollinator is the incredibly cute honey possum of south-western Australia. These tiny, long-snouted creatures are the only mammals to feed exclusively on nectar and pollen, having a brush-like tip to their tongue to aid in pollen collection. Amongst mammals they are unique in a number of other ways: they have the largest testes, proportional to their size, and the smallest young at birth, weighing just 1/200th of a gram.

  2. The largest flower on Earth is that of the rare plant Rafflesia arnoldii, which is found in the dense, steamy rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. The brownish-pink, mottled flowers are about one metre across, can weigh more than ten kilograms and reek of decaying flesh to attract flies. This plant is also peculiar in having no leaves and little in the way of stem or roots; it is a parasite, sucking its nutrients from rainforest vines.

  3. In the 1970s Lawrence Gilbert, a butterfly expert from the University of Texas in Austin, discovered that the Heliconius butterflies of South America are able to digest pollen. These elegant, long-winged neotropical insects are Methuselahs of the butterfly world, living for up to six months as active adults, whereas most butterflies live for just a couple of weeks. To fuel this longevity they collect a ball of pollen at the base of their tongue and exude sugary liquid on to it. This is sufficient to cause the pollen to release much of its amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), which the insects can then suck up through their tubular tongues.

  11. Robbing Rattle

  1. Plant taxonomists seem to be a perverse bunch. Not only do they insist on family names that have at least a dozen or more syllables, but they then change them every five minutes, so that whatever names you manage to learn are soon out of date.

  12. Smutty Campions

  1. Geraniums should not be confused with pelargoniums, the red-flowered stalwart of every hanging basket, which are often mistakenly called geraniums. True geraniums include many native, wild species, such as herb robert and the lovely purple-flowered meadow cranesbill (so called because the seedhead resembles the head of a bird with a long bill, one of the distinguishing features of the geranium family). There are also many perennial herbaceous garden varieties, most of which are good plants to encourage bumblebees.

  13. The Disappearing Bees

  1. Interestingly, corncrake distributions, both past and present, closely match those of the great yellow bumblebee. Corncrakes used to be found nesting in hay meadows and cereal fields all over the UK, but the loss of hay meadows removed much of their habitat, and the switch to early-maturing winter cereals means that many of their nests are destroyed by combine harvesters. They now cling on only in the remote, crofted corners of Scotland where farming has changed relatively little.

  2. Actually, to start with, much of the set-aside was useless for wildlife as it was often treated with herbicides to prevent weeds from seeding, and land was only left fallow for short periods, giving little time for wild plants and animals to colonise before it was ploughed up. Later iterations of set-aside schemes were much improved, allowing for the long-term set-aside of areas. Sadly, just as many of these were becoming havens for wildlife, EU policy changed and in 2008 more or less all set-aside schemes were abandoned.

  3. At the time of writing a number of major garden centres and DIY chains have recently withdrawn these compounds from their shelves.

  14. The Inbred Isles

  1. I hesitate to use the phrase ‘paradigm-shifting’, which sprang to mind here but is now horribly overused in scientific circles – it seems that every research grant application has to pretend that it is going to shift at least half a dozen paradigms if it is going to stand any chance of receiving funding. The European Research Council actually specifies that it will only fund paradigm-shifting research, but as far as I can see, if you know you are going to shift a paradigm before you have done the work, it must be a pretty dumb paradigm in the first place. When I was an undergraduate I embarrassed myself considerably by pronouncing paradigm as para-dig-m (in case, like me, you don’t know, it should be para-dime).

  2. Actually, no we don’t – at least not the roads part. It is a source of constant dismay to me that successive governments unthinkingly accept forecasts of future growth in traffic, and hence the need for endless road-widening schemes, bypasses, and so on. Why aren’t we spending this same money encouraging people out of their cars and on to public transport, or giving incentives to companies to allow their staff to work from home one or two days a week? This would also reduce pollution, and would reduce the need to grow biofuel crops, freeing up more land for food production or for conservation.

  15. Easter Island

  1. It is sometimes argued that primitive human societies lived in harmony with nature, and that it is only modern society that is wasteful, profligate and destructive. However, the evidence suggests that humans haven’t really changed much at all. Our ancestors exploited the environment as ruthlessly and with as little care for the future as we do today. The only difference is that our increased number and more advanced technology enable us to destroy the Earth much more quickly than they could manage. As Matt Ridley points out in his excellent book The Origins of Virtue, the idea that Native Americans had an environmental ethic and avoided over-exploiting resources was a romantic but entirely false invention of the twentieth century, later fostered by films such as Last of the Mohicans. Indeed, there is strong evidence that in some regions the Native Americans hunted bison simply by stampeding whole herds over the nearest cliff, only bothering to cut joints from the topmost carcasses in the pile.

  2. There remains some debate as to exactly what happened on Easter Island. Jared Diamond’s fascinating tome, Collapse, paints a very bleak picture of the state of the islanders when first visited by Europeans, but his view has offended the descendants of the islanders, who resent the implication that their ancestors destroyed their ecosystem and turned to cannibalism, and argue instead that the main decline of the islanders occurred after European visitation. If we put political correctness to one side, the facts appear to support Diamond – there is no doubt that the islanders failed to manage the resources at their disposal, drove dozens of species to extinction and vastly reduced the capacity of the island to support life of any sort.

  3. Some estimates of the number of species on the planet even go as high as 100 million, although an awful lot of these would be bacteria.

  Acknowledgements

  I must thank all of the many people that I have worked with over the last twenty years, particularly my thirty or so PhD students and the countless undergraduate project students who have working in my research group, all of whom have had to put up with my spectacularly disorganised and forgetful supervision. It was an honour to work with you all. My apologies to them and other scientists whose work I mention if there are factual errors or inaccuracies.

  Particular thanks are due to my agent, Patrick Walsh of Conville & Walsh, without whom my first book, A Sting in the Tale, might well still be nothing more than a file on my laptop, in which case A Buzz in the Meadow would surely never have been written. Thanks also to my editor, Dan Franklin, and the wonderful staff at Jonathan Cape and Random House, with whom publishing is a pleasure.

  Finally, I must mention Ellen Rotheray and Kirsty Park, the first people I trust to read my manuscripts. Thank you both for your encouragement, and for gently pointing out the worst of my many blunders.

  Index

  The index that appears in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Adonis blue butterfly

  Aesculapian snake

  agri-environment schemes

  Animalocaris

  Anthophora plumipes

  Aoki, Shigeyuki

  aphid

  arachnid

&nbs
p; Arctic poppy

  axolotl

  Banksia

  barn owl

  bartsia

  bat

  bat bug

  bed bug

  bee orchid

  beech marten

  Berlins, Marcel

  Bernwood Forest

  Bernwood Meadows

  bilberry bumblebee

  Birch, Martin

  black hairstreak

  blackthorn

  black-veined white butterfly

  Bombus wurflenii

  Brakefield Paul

  brimstone butterfly

  broom

  buff-tailed bumblebee

  Buglife

  bumblebee

  Bumblebee Conservation Trust

  Burgess Shale

  buttercup

  butterfly

  buzz pollination

  campion

  campion moth

  campion smut

  carboniferous period

  carrion beetle

  Carson, Rachel

  Casey, Leanne

  centaury

  Chagas’ disease

  Chapman, Jason

  Charente

  cheating, in mutualisms

  chicken farm

  cicada

  cinquefoil

  clothes moth

  clover

  cockroach

  cocksfoot grass

  Colony Collapse Disorder

  Colorado beetle

  common carder bumblebee

  Conway-Morris, Simon

  corncrake

  Cothill

  courtship

  cow-wheat

  cowslip

  coypu

  Cresswell, James

  cricket

  Crithidia bombi

  crustacean

  cuckoo

  cuckoo pint

  cuckoo spit

  Dactylorhiza majalis

  dance fly

  Darwin, Charles

  Dawkins, Richard

  DDT

  deadnettle

  decomposition

  Decourtye, Axel

  death-watch beetle

  demoiselle damselfly

  Diamond, Jared

  disease transmission by flies

  dolichopodid fly

  dormouse

  Dowdeswell, Wilfrid Hogarth

  Dutch elm disease

  dragonfly

  Duke of Burgundy fritillary butterfly

  earthworm

  earwig

  Easter Island

  ecological genetics

  Ehrlich, Anne

  Ehrlich, Paul

  Épenède

  eurypterid

  extinction

  extinct megafauna

  extra-pair copulation

  eyebright

  Fabre, Jean-Henri

  false oat grass

  firebug

  fire salamander

  Fisher, Ronald A.

  Floral mimicry

  flower, evolution of

  Fontaneau, Monsieur

  Ford, E. B.

  forget-me-not

  foxglove

  frog

  froghopper

  Fukatsu, Takema

  garden bumblebee

  Garibaldi, Lucas

  genetic drift

  genitalia

  geranium

  Gilbert, Lawrence

  Glanville fritillary butterfly

  glow-worm

  golden oriole

  Gould, Stephen Jay

  grasshopper

  great green bushcricket

  great reed warbler

  great tit

  great yellow bumblebee

  green lizard

  green woodpecker

  greenfly

  hairstreak butterfly

  Haldane, J.B.S.

  Hallucigenia

  Hanski, Ilkka

  hare

  hawkbit

  hedgehog

  Heliconius butterfly

  heliotropism

  hellebore

  Henry, Mickaël

  Hererra, Carlos

  holly blue butterfly

  Homo erectus

  Homo floresiensis

  Homo neanderthalensis

  Homo sapiens

  honeybee

  honey possum

  honeysuckle

  hoopoe

  hormone, insect

  house fly

  hoverfly

  hummingbird hawkmoth

  impacts of man on the environment

  imidacloprid

  inbreeding

  insect evolution

  insecticide

  Integrated Pest Management

  invasive species

  Island Biogeography Theory

  Kells, Andrea

  Kettlewell, Bernard

  kissing bug

  lacewing

  Lack, Andrew

  ladybird

  lady’s bedstraw

  landfill site

  large tortoiseshell butterfly

  leaf-cutter ant

  lizard

  Lopez-Vaamonde, Carlos

  MacArthur, Robert

  Maniola jurtina

  mammoth

  mating

  meadow brown butterfly

  meadow clary

  meadow foxtail grass

  meadow vetchling

  meadowsweet

  meddick

  melanism (the occurrence of dark forms of a species)

  Mendel, Gregor

  metamorphosis

  Microbotryum violaceum

  millipede

  mites

  mole

  Monach Isles

  monarch butterfly

  Montagu’s harrier

  Morrison, James

  mosquito

  moth

  Musca domestica

  mutualisms

  Native American

  nectar

  nectar robbing

  Nieminen, Marko

  neonicotinoid

  nest usurping in bumblebees

  newt

  nutrient cycles

  O’Connor, Steph

  Oncocyclus iris

  Opabinia

  orchard

  orchid

  Owen, Denis

  owl butterfly

  Oxford

  panda

  paper wasp

  parthenogenesis

  peppered moth

  Peat, James

  pesticide

  petals, function of

  pheromone

  Philodendron

  picture-wing fly

  pignut

  pollen

  pollination

  pond

  pond skater

  Poupard, Monsieur

  Pozo, Maria

  purple emperor butterfly

  praying mantis

  prickly pear

  primrose

  Pywell, Richard

  Quammen, David

  Queen of Spain fritillary butterfly

  ragged robin

  ragwort

  Rafflesia arnoldii

  Raine, Nigel

  Rayner, Pippa

  red-eared terrapin

  red-legged partridge

  red-shanked carder bee

  red-tailed bumblebee

  restharrow

  Rhinanthus minor

  Rolph, Tasha

  Rothamsted Experimental Station

  Rove beetle

  ruderal bumblebee

  scarce swallowtail butterfly

  scarlet tiger moth

  Scilly Isles

  scorpion fly

  shield bug

  short-haired bumblebee

  snapdragon

  speckled wood butterfly

  springtail

  stone curlew

  sweet vernal grass

  shrew

  shrill carder bee

  Simberloff, Daniel

&nb
sp; single large or several small debate

  small blue butterfly

  soldier aphid

  stag beetle

  stalk-eyed fly

  stonechat

  superb fairy wren

  swallow

  swallowtail butterfly

  sunflower

  tardigrade

  teasel

  Tendrich, Steve

  thermal rewards

  thistle

  Thomson, James D.

  thyme

  ticks

  toad

  tormentil

  trilobite

  triploid

  tufted vetch

  vampire bat

  Varroa mite

  vinegaroon

  viper’s bugloss

  vole

  Walcott, Charles

  wall lizard

  Walport, Sir Mark

  water bear

  water boatman

  water scorpion

  Watson, Robert

  western whip snake

  whirligig beetle

  white-tailed bumblebee

  Whitehorn, Penelope

  whitethroat

  Wigglesworth, Sir Vincent Brian

  wild basil

  wild carrot

  Wilson, E. O.

  wing spots (on butterflies)

  wood-ant

  woodlouse

  wood white butterfly

  woody nightshade

  Wright, Sewall

  Wyatt, Tristram

  Xerces Society

  yellow rattle

  yorkshire fog grass

  ALSO BY DAVE GOULSON

  A Sting in the Tale

  About the Author

  DAVE GOULSON studied biology at Oxford University and is now a professor of biological sciences at the University of Stirling. He founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, whose groundbreaking conservation work earned him the Heritage Lottery Award for Best Environmental Project and “Social Innovator of the Year” from the Biology and Biotechnology Research Council. His previous book, A Sting in the Tale, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.

  A BUZZ IN THE MEADOW. Copyright © 2014 by Dave Goulson. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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  Lines from “The Fly” by Ogden Nash, copyright © 1942 by Ogden Nash. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.