Washington Native Bee Society
How Important are Rare Wildflowers for Pollinators?
A Collaborative PNW Ecological Research Initiative
Your donation makes it possible
Your contributions fund:
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Collaboration between ecologists and volunteer community scientists
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Permitting
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Site establishment and materials
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Fieldwork
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Handling and analysis of data
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Interpretation and outreach with study results
*Donations using DAF Funds are available by selecting the "One Time" option.
Pollinators face a wide array of challenges in our current world: many species are declining. Many of their intimate partners—plants—are also becoming rare.
In 2024, the Washington Natural Heritage Program listed 388 plant species of conservation concern, or approximately 1 out of every 10 plant species in Washington—an extraordinary statistic.
Once wholly lost, a species is gone forever.
Nonetheless, we are flirting with losing thousands of species worldwide, including many native wildflowers here in Washington.
Does it matter? We strongly suspect yes. Many of our native pollinators--as well as other animals--likely rely on these plants. However, currently nobody knows just how important these increasingly rare native wildflowers are to pollinator populations.
The Pollinators of Rare Wildflowers project will explore the role of rare plants in supporting pollinators, and the possible impacts of losing rare wildflower species.
This project is a collaboration
between professional scientists and “community scientist” volunteers who survey bees for the Washington Bee Atlas to:
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Survey pollinators on rare PNW wildflowers
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Deepen and broaden volunteers’ experiences with native plants and pollinators
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Create a model of all the interrelationships between a rare wildflower, its pollinators, and all the other flowers nearby (an "interaction network")
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Use the network to assess how likely it is that other pollinators and/or other plants would suffer if the rare wildflower were to disappear.
What is an interaction network?
A network is a portrayal of how plants and pollinators are interacting with each other. Networks can be used to get a glimpse of how a whole plant-pollinator community is interconnected. Researchers can explore what might happen if a species is lost from the real-life community, by simulating the species’ removal from the network and how that loss radiates through the interconnections, affecting both plants and pollinators.
An example network is illustrated to the right. If a particular pollinator visits a particular wildflower, there is a line connecting the two. The thickness of the line shows how often they interact.
This is a real-life network, documented in a Washington location where a rare (federally threatened) wildflower grows. Plants are across the bottom, pollinators across the top. In this situation, the rare wildflower (marked in red) was visited by many pollinators that were not visiting other plants (lines connecting only to the red), suggesting the rare flower plays a central role.
What will this project give us?
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Basic ecology: An improved understanding of how important rare wildflowers are to pollinators in general
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Conservation applications: An understanding of which pollinators visit specific rare or endangered wildflowers
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Outreach tools: A way to engage the public with the importance of rare plants
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Natural history discoveries: Possible documentation of pollinators never before documented in Washington
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Public immersion in nature: Unique opportunities in plant and pollinator natural history for volunteers
The Pollinators of Rare Wildflowers Project is under the fiscal sponsorship of the Washington Native Bee Society, Tax ID (EIN) 87-4309296, P.O. Box 45271, Seattle, WA 98145.
All donations are tax-deductible.
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
- Emily Dickinson, To Make a Prairie, 1759
Bee habitat: The Mima Prairie in peak camas bloom during early May at Glacial Heritage Preserve in Thurston County. During the spring and early summer, these mysterious prairies become a sea of wildflowers where a vast diversity of native bees can be found.