Abstract
Public interest in ecological landscaping and gardening is fueling a robust market for native plants. Most plants available to consumers through the horticulture trade are cultivated forms that have been selected for modified flowers or foliage, compactness, or other ornamental characteristics. Depending on their traits, some native plant cultivars seem to support pollinators, specialist insect folivores, and insect-based vertebrate food webs as effectively as native plant species, whereas others do not. There is particular need for information on whether native cultivars can be as effective as true or “wild-type” native species for supporting specialist native insects of conservation concern. Herein we compared the suitability of native milkweed species and their cultivars for attracting and supporting one such insect, the iconic monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus L.), as well as native bees in urban pollinator gardens. Wild-type Asclepias incarnata L. (swamp milkweed) and Asclepias tuberosa L. (butterfly milkweed) and three additional cultivars of each that vary in stature, floral display, and foliage color were grown in a replicated common garden experiment at a public arboretum. We monitored the plants for colonization by wild monarchs, assessed their suitability for supporting monarch larvae in greenhouse trials, measured their defensive characteristics (leaf trichome density, latex, and cardenolide levels), and compared the proportionate abundance and diversity of bee families and genera visiting their blooms. Significantly more monarch eggs and larvae were found on A. incarnata than A. tuberosa in both years, but within each milkweed group, cultivars were colonized to the same extent as wild types. Despite some differences in defense allocation, all cultivars were as suitable as wild-type milkweeds in supporting monarch larval growth. Five bee families and 17 genera were represented amongst the 2,436 total bees sampled from blooms of wild-type milkweeds and their cultivars in the replicated gardens. Bee assemblages of A. incarnata were dominated by Apidae (Bombus, Xylocopa spp., and Apis mellifera), whereas A. tuberosa attracted relatively more Halictidae (especially Lasioglossum spp.) and Megachilidae. Proportionate abundance of bee families and genera was generally similar for cultivars and their respective wild types. This study suggests that, at least in small urban gardens, milkweed cultivars can be as suitable as their parental species for supporting monarch butterflies and native bees.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-25-2020
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9823
Funding Information
Funding was provided by USDA-NIFA-SCRI grant 2016-51181-235399 administered through IR4 Grant 2015-34383-23710, the Horticultural Research Institute, BASF Living Acres Program, University of Kentucky Nursery Research Endowment Fund, and USDA-NIFA Hatch Project no. 2351587000.
Related Content
The raw measurements are available in the additional files listed at the end of this record.
The research data is available for download from UKnowledge.
Repository Citation
Baker, Adam M.; Redmond, Carl T.; Malcolm, Stephen B.; and Potter, Daniel A., "Suitability of Native Milkweed (Asclepias) Species versus Cultivars for Supporting Monarch Butterflies and Bees in Urban Gardens" (2020). Entomology Faculty Publications. 200.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/entomology_facpub/200
Ornamental characteristics of wild-type milkweeds and cultivars. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9823/supp-1
Table_S2.revised.7.6.docx (13 kB)
Height and width at maturity and bloom period of milkweeds in the replicated gardens in 2019. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9823/supp-2
File1.xlsx (101 kB)
Raw data. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9823/supp-3
Notes/Citation Information
Published in PeerJ, v. 8, e9823.
© 2020 Baker et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.