Nelson makes a BEE-Line to help Pollinators Nelson Aggregate Co. partners with CANPOLIN (Canadian Pollination Initiative) and the University of Guelph by providing quarry sites for pilot studies.
Nelson's Partnering with CANPOLIN
Nelson Aggregate Company will be partnering with CANPOLIN (Canadian Pollination Initiative) and the University of Guelph, beginning in the spring of 2008, by providing pilot study areas on the rehabilitated slopes of its Burlington and Cambridge aggregate properties. Pollinator friendly plantings will be the order of the day, and those will be coupled with the monitoring of pollinators (bees, butterflies, etc.) re-establish populations through provision of flowers and nesting areas. As a result of pollination, some of the chosen plants will provide seeds and fruits as food for small mammals and birds. The restored habitats and their inhabitants will also be monitored as the sites take on greater and greater biodiversity, complexity and function. The sites will provide special opportunity for long-term ecological monitoring, much needed to answer many other ecological questions.
The great majority of Canada’s wild plant species are pollinated by animals, as are many of our crops, especially orchard fruit, oil seeds, and pasture species like clover. As these wild and managed pollinators forage for nectar and pollen, plants can use them as vehicles for the transportation of their pollen from flower to flower. In Canada, our animal pollinators are mainly insects (mostly bees, but also flies, butterflies, and moths) with a few species of hummingbirds also involved. It is now recognized, however, that ecosystems relying on animal pollination are in trouble all around the world because of declining pollinator numbers. This decline reduces the capacity of plants to produce fruits and seeds, and thus threatens ecosystem integrity as well as agricultural productivity. However, little is known about the diversity, abundance, and relative importance of animal pollinators in the functioning of our agricultural and wild ecosystems.
