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Listmania: the strengths and weaknesses of lists of garden plants recommended to help bees, butterflies and other pollinators

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 20:19 authored by Mihail Garbuzov, Francis Ratnieks
Pollinators are in global decline. One of the few ways in which the general public can help is by cultivating ornamental garden plants that attract pollinators by producing nectar, pollen, or both. Advice in the form of lists of recommended plants is available, but how good are these recommendations? Here, we overview a sample of 15 such lists and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. In particular, we found that the range of the number of plant genera per list was large (29–257) and that there was rather little overlap in the recommendations, even among lists addressing the same geographic region (e.g., Britain or North America). Furthermore, the lists often included poor recommendations, omitted many good plants, lacked detail, and were almost invariably based on their authors’ general expertize rather than on empirical data. Nevertheless, some advice given in the lists was good, because these recommendations were presumably backed by personal observations and less formally gathered data. The lists were also very appealing to the public, which makes them an excellent tool in communication and a useful starting point for further research.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

BioScience

ISSN

0006-3568

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Issue

11

Volume

64

Page range

1019-1026

Department affiliated with

  • Evolution, Behaviour and Environment Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-03-16

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