Along the roadside where West Road and N.M. Highway 501 intersect, near one of the Los Alamos National Lab's access points and the turnoff for Pajarito Ski Hill, a patch of showy milkweed grows each summer, becoming vital habitat for a species in decline.
Once mowed by grounds maintenance crews each June, Laboratory biologists identified the area as critical monarch butterfly habitat in 2019. Since milkweed is the only plant on which the monarch lays eggs, and because the butterfly is a candidate for the Endangered Species Act, these Los Alamos biologists created a plan for managing that area's vegetation.
Since that time, these native plants have successfully been kept intact until the fall, after monarchs have migrated to the region, laid eggs on their host plants and completed their reproductive life cycle.
These small but significant acts are gaining traction, and last month, in another patch of grass on the Laboratory campus, raised beds were installed with a variety of native flowers - including penstemon, desert marigold and prairie coneflower - all of which attract and feed pollinating insects, such as the monarch.
Why protect pollinators?
Pollinating insects facilitate plants' reproduction by moving pollen from the male part of a flower to the female part of a flower, which creates seeds for regrowth. They're responsible for the reproduction of 80% of the world's flowering plants, and they're key to the Earth's plant diversity.
Many of the plants that pollinators support include food crops such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs and coffee - all staples to humans' diets.
"They're really important for food security - in addition to being incredibly beautiful," said wildlife biologist Jenna Stanek of the Lab's Environmental Protection and Compliance division.
Fortunately, "The Lab has several best management practices for protecting the monarch, so if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does decide the species should be federally protected under the Endangered Species Act, which would mean updating our habitat management plan, we're already ahead of the game," Stanek said.
The Lab's plan for pollinator conservation
The Lab began its efforts to protect pollinating insects after the federal government issued a memorandum in 2014 that "called for land-owning federal departments to take immediate action to prevent further pollinator population decline."
This spurred the Department of Energy to create a Pollinator Protection Plan, which encourages its "sites to pursue opportunities to protect pollinators and enhance pollinator habitat."
