Bug Banter with the Xerces Society

Photography is a powerful tool to tell stories and change perspectives. This is especially true when it comes to insects and invertebrates—animals that are often overlooked and misunderstood. How can we use photography to share the story of these creatures we love and inspire others to save them?

To share his experience and photography tips is Clay Bolt. Clay is the Manager of Pollinator Conservation and Great Plains Communications for the World Wildlife Fund. He is also an award-winning conservation and natural history photographer. Clay focuses on native bees and other overlooked species. His work has been featured in National Geographic, The New York Times, and National Wildlife Magazine. He is a Senior Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers, a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, a past president of the North American Nature Photography Association, and a multi-time honoree in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Between 2015 and 2017, Clay played a notable role in the successful campaign to protect the rusty-patched bumble bee under the Endangered Species Act—the first native North American bee to receive federal protection. In 2019, Clay was part of the team that successfully went in search of the world’s largest bee, Wallace’s giant bee, which had only been recorded by a western scientist once since it was first described by Alfred Russell Wallace in 1858.

---

Cover photo: © Clay Bolt

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

In almost every episode, we’ve talked about what people can do to help invertebrates, whether that’s planting habitat, reducing pesticide risk, or simply paying closer attention to the living world around us. The success of conservation requires various involvement from community members, volunteers, and professionals. In this episode, we’ll be talking about what it can look like to make conservation part of your work life. We’ve invited several Xerces staff members to talk about how they got here, what they’ve learned, and what advice they might give to people interested in pursuing a career in conservation.

---

Photo: Michele Blackburn/Xerces Society

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

On Bug Banter we talk a lot about what people can do to help invertebrates and nothing is more inspiring than hearing one person's successful journey to creating a wildlife haven in their own backyard.

Joining us to share his experience and tell us about his incredible space is Elliott Gordon. Elliott has been a Xerces Ambassador since 2022, based in New Mexico. At his home in suburban Albuquerque, he stewards a high-quality, pesticide-free landscape of diverse native and xeric plants and tries to document all of the wildlife that it supports. He is a member of the brand-new New Mexico rare arthropod technical council, formed to identify species of conservation concern in the state. He also volunteers for the New Mexico backyard refuge program, New Mexico butterfly monitoring network, Pollinators in the Neighborhood (which helps support Albuquerque’s Bee City USA initiatives), and the University of New Mexico’s museum of southwestern biology as a beetle researcher.

---

Cover Photo: Elliott Gordon

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Seed collecting is a hands-on way to learn and care for native plants, plant communities, and the insects that live among them. So who can collect seeds and how do you do it? How do you store the seeds and when is the best time to plant them?

To answer these questions and take a deep dive into seed collection is Eric Lee-Mäder and Stephanie Frischie.

Eric has a background in conservation, commercial horticulture, and the nursery industry. Eric was previously the co-director of the Pollinator Conservation team at Xerces focused on large-scale habitat restoration for bees on farms across the U.S. and Canada, and helped develop seed production for native plants important to pollinators. Eric now works full time co-running his family business, Northwest Meadowscapes Conservation Seed Company.

Stephanie is an Agronomist and Native Plant Materials Specialist at Xerces. Stephanie brings technical expertise on native plant materials, native plants, and plant-insect interactions to her work across conservation agronomy; plant ecology; ecological restoration; and native seed production, use, policy, research, and quality — all to improve the supply and growth of important plant species for restoration of insect habitat.

---

Photo: Eric Lee-Mäder/Xerces Society

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

The rusty patched bumble bee is a gorgeous bee, richly colored in yellow and black with a distinctive rusty brown marking on its back. It holds a special place in history: In January 2017, it became the first bee in the continental U.S. to be listed under the Endangered Species Act, and in May of this year, 1.5 million acres of land were designated as critical habitat, the largest area of critical habitat ever declared for an insect.

To tell us the story of how this bumble bee went from unknown to icon are two people who played a central role in the years-long effort, Sarina Jepsen and Rich Hatfield.

Sarina is the Endangered Species Program Director here at Xerces, and has worked on the protection of many different invertebrate species, including bees, butterflies, tiger beetles, fireflies, and freshwater mussels. Sarina co-founded the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission’s Bumblebee Specialist Group, an international network of scientists who aim to evaluate the extinction risk of bumble bees worldwide.

Rich also works at Xerces, where he is a Senior Conservation Biologist on our Endangered Species team and Bumble Bee Conservation Lead, which means he manages all aspects of the Xerces Society’s work on bumble bees. This includes coordinating the Bumble Bee community science projects, including the Bumble Bee Atlas. Rich is also working to understand the threats to bumble bees and actions we can take to protect them, and advocating for their protection.

---

Photo: Rich Hatfield / Xerces Society

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

In a previous episode we highlighted the State of the Butterflies report, which found that we are losing butterflies at a rate of 1.3% per year in the contiguous US: more than one-fifth of our butterflies disappeared between 2000 and 2020. Perhaps more alarming, over 40% of assessed species fell in numbers by 50% or more—and two dozen species suffered more than 90% losses. So what can we do to help butterflies?

To give us guidance are butterfly experts, Ray Moranz and Kevin Burls, both of whom you may remember from previous episodes. Ray is a Xerces Pollinator Conservation Specialist and NRCS Partner Biologist based in Oklahoma. He works to conserve pollinators on rangelands in the central U.S. and conducts research on monarch butterfly migration and overwintering in the southeastern U.S. Kevin is a Xerces Society Endangered Species Conservation Biologist based in northern Nevada. His work focuses on protecting the hundreds of butterfly species that inhabit deserts, forests, and grasslands across the western United States.

*Correction: when referencing the book Attracting Beneficial Insects, the correct title is Farming with Native Beneficial Insects: Ecological Pest Control Solutions.

** Correction: When referencing the tool Monarch Plant Finder, the correct name for the tool is Plants for Monarchs.

---

Photo: Xerces Society/Nancy Lee Adamson

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

From chasing bumble bees in Alaska to understanding native bee populations nationwide, this scientist is on a mission to better understand these important insects.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Hollis Woodard. Hollis is a Professor of Entomology at the University of California, Riverside and PI — the Principal Investigator, i.e., the person leading the project — of the US National Native Bee Monitoring Research Coordination Network. She received a PhD in Biology in 2012 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studied the molecular basis of social evolution in bees. She is broadly interested in native bee ecology, evolution, social behavior, and conservation, and has worked with laboratory-reared bees and the wild bees of Alaska, California, Maine, and Vermont — and is a collaborator with Xerces on the State of the Bees project.

----

Photo: (c) beaucheminalex (CC BY-NC)

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Florida may not be the first state that comes to mind when talking about monarch butterflies. Maybe that’s because much of the conversation about monarchs focuses on their migration and the condition of the overwintering sites in Mexico and California, and so it kind of bypasses the Sunshine State. However, there are reports that monarchs can be seen in Florida all year, and today, we are going to give them their time in the spotlight. We are going to take a journey with monarchs that travel through Florida and explore new exciting technologies to track their migration.

Who better to tell this story than monarch expert and Bug Banter regular, Ray Moranz. Ray is a Xerces Pollinator Conservation Specialist and NRCS Partner Biologist based in Oklahoma, where he works to conserve pollinators on rangelands in the central U.S. However, he has been studying monarchs for even longer and is probably seldom happier than when he is pursuing an orange-and-black butterfly across the Florida landscape.

--

Cover photo: Dean Jue (c)

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Do you know what insects are in your pollinator garden or in your community? How do you find them, identify them, and continue to support them? Well, if you want the answers to these questions, you came to the right place!

To help us explore this topic and give us their best tips, are Jennifer Hopwood and Aaron Anderson. Jennifer is a Senior Pollinator Conservation Specialist with Xerces, providing resources and training for pollinator and beneficial insect habitat management and restoration in a variety of landscapes. Aaron is a Pesticide Program Specialist at Xerces and works with communities across the country, as well as Xerces staff, to reduce pesticide use in residential landscapes, including promoting non-pesticide approaches to landscape care and pollinator-friendly gardening practices. Neither of these guests are strangers to Bug Banter.

---
Photo: Sara Morris CC BY-NC 2.0

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Millipedes. Do they really have a thousand feet? To answer this and many other much more sensible questions, we are joined today by two people who know way more about these largely overlooked animals than I do, Drs Ben Jantzen and Jackson Means.

Ben is the founder and President of the Virginia Institute for Invertebrates. With a background in biophysics, especially insect flight, he is presently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Tech. Jackson is an Assistant Curator of Recent Invertebrates at the Virginia Museum of Natural History and a myriapodologist (i.e., a scientist that studies millipedes, centipedes, and relatives). His research focuses on the discovery and description of new species, primarily in the mountains and foothills of Appalachia.

...

Photo: Peter Pearsall/USFWS

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

We spend a lot of time talking about how we can create habitat for pollinators in yards, but there are other spaces too. So if you don’t have a yard or even if you do and you want to expand your impact, no problem! Today we are going to explore how to create pollinator habitat beyond your home.

Joining us to talk about this is Kelly Gill, Pollinator Conservation Specialist and Partner Biologist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service for Xerces. Kelly provides advice and support on planning, designing, installing, and managing habitat in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Kelly also works with staff and research partners to develop technical guidelines and provide training on pollinator conservation practices.

---

Photo: Kelly Gill (c)

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

The color green is associated with a clean, healthy environment. When we see a green space, we often think it’s good, whether it is a beautiful forest or a neighborhood lawn. All plants provide for wildlife, right? Unfortunately, no. Some landscapes, in particular lawns, provide very little to no habitat. So, what can folks do to change their landscape? How can they rethink or replace their lawn to support wildlife?

To explore this topic, we are joined by Emily May and Stephanie Frischie. Emily is part of our pesticide reduction team at Xerces. With a focus on pesticides in agriculture, Emily works with farmers, researchers, conservation professionals, and agencies across the U.S. to reduce pesticide risks to pollinators and other beneficial insects, support the adoption of ecologically sound pest management practices, and expand high-quality habitat in working lands.

Stephanie Frischie is an Agronomist and Native Plant Materials Specialist at Xerces. Stephanie brings technical expertise on native plant materials, native plants, and plant-insect interactions to her work across conservation agronomy; plant ecology; ecological restoration; and native seed production, use, policy, research, and quality — all to improve the supply and growth of important plant species for restoration of insect habitat.

---
Photo: Emily May

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

The Xerces Society is named for a blue butterfly, the Xerces blue, which went extinct in the 1940s. Luckily, there are other blues, some of which are doing fine and we can see regularly in our parks and neighborhoods, little butterflies who flash bright blue when they move their wings. Others, unfortunately, are not doing so well. In this episode, we are highlighting one of those, the Karner blue.

Joining us to talk more about this butterfly is Julie Michaelson. Julie works for the Xerces Society as a pollinator conservation planner and NRCS partner biologist covering the Connecticut River Valley in New England. In this role, Julie collaborates with the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service and the American Farmland Trust to provide technical support, training, and conservation planning assistance to farmers and land managers seeking to develop pollinator and beneficial insect habitat. Prior to joining Xerces, Julie was an environmental steward with New York state parks where she monitored and managed habitat for the endangered Karner blue butterfly, the topic of today’s conversation.

---

Cover Photo: Justin Meissen CC BY-SA 2.0

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Few beetles are revered as sacred, seen as a symbol of rebirth, represented in ancient art, and to this day are used commercially for waste disposal, but dung beetles are. And if that’s not impressive enough they use the Milky Way to navigate. Truly amazing animals.

To dig a deeper into the lives of dung beetles, we are joined today by Katie Harris. Katie works for the Xerces Society as a Pollinator Conservation Specialist and NRCS Partner Biologist in Texas, where she works to conserve pollinating insects, with a focus on monarch butterflies, across the state. Katie has an M.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where she studied the biodiversity of spiders. She then began investigating and creating effective monarch butterfly habitat and in 2023 graduated from the University of Missouri with a PhD. That led to a position as a postdoc researcher at the University of Texas at Austin examining the effects of parasitism on dung beetle behavior and ecosystem services in central Texas.

---

Photo: Katie Harris (c)

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Xeriscaping is an important tool to conserve water and creates resiliency in the face of climate change, among other benefits. In this episode, we are going to explore the benefits of xeriscaping, how to do it, and how it can impact the conservation of insects.

Joining us to dive into this topic is Kailtin Haase, Xerces Pollinator Conservation Specialist in the Southwest. Kaitlin works to create climate-resilient, connected pollinator habitat in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. She collaborates with and educates public and private urban land managers in New Mexico and the desert Southwest on pollinator-friendly practices for landscaping, gardening, and open space restoration.
---
Cover Photo: Kaitlin Hasse

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

In this episode, we are going to explore the world of arachnids, but not the spiders you likely imagined after I said that. Nor ticks, nor mites, nor scorpions. No, today we are focusing on solifuges. “Soli-what?” you may be thinking.

Joining us to explain more is Dr. Paula Cushing. Paula works at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Colorado, where she is the senior curator of invertebrate zoology. She is an evolutionary biologist who studies evolutionary patterns and processes in arachnids. Paula’s research focuses on the diversity of arachnids in the Rocky Mountain/Great Plains ecoregion, leveraging community science projects such as the Colorado Spider Survey to engage more people in gathering observations. She has done research in all the deserts of the western United States, in Florida, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico, as well as in Mexico and Panama.

---

Photo credit: Harshjeet Singh Bal's CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

There may be a hidden danger lurking in the plants you purchase. Many plants sold at stores and nurseries, even native plants, are pre-treated with pesticides. So while trying to provide habitat for pollinators, you could be exposing them to chemicals. How do you know if plants have been treated with pesticides? Where can you find plants that haven’t been treated?

Joining us to explore this topic is Sharon Selvaggio. Sharon is a Pesticide Program Specialist for the Xerces Society. She assists our staff, project partners, and the public to reduce reliance on pesticides and understand the risk these chemicals pose to invertebrates. Sharon also leads the Buying Bee-Safe Plants campaign. Sharon previously worked at Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Forest Service, and integrates her focus on pesticides with her experience managing natural areas and working lands.

---

Photo Credit: Kailee Slusser

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

**Correction: In this episode it states that the number of western monarchs in 2023 was 9,000 total. This was the total number for 2024.

Monarch butterflies are known as long-distance travelers, flying hundreds or thousands of miles from summer breeding areas to overwintering sites. These sites, although small, are essential for the survival of monarchs. Monarch butterflies across the western United States and into British Columbia migrate to California, where they shelter in tree groves scattered along the coast from Mendocino County to the Mexican border and further south. Beyond trees to roost in, what other features makes a grove good for monarchs? What more can we learn to help provide for their overwintering needs?

To talk with us and help understand these questions, we are joined by Kyle Nessen. Kyle is a Biology instructor at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California. He has a masters of science in biology from California Polytechnic State University where he studied impacts of wind and forest structure on monarchs in their overwintering habitat.

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

There are countless ways to support the invertebrates we care about, and creating habitat in your own backyard or community is one we’ve often discussed. Today, we’ll explore real-world examples—what works, what doesn’t, and the exciting discoveries made along the way.

Joining us to talk about her very own yard is Jennifer Hopwood. Jennifer is a Senior Pollinator Conservation Specialist with Xerces, providing resources and training for pollinator and beneficial insect habitat management and restoration in a variety of landscapes. Jennifer has authored a number of publications and articles, and is co-author of several books, including Farming with Native Beneficial Insects, 100 Plants to Feed the Bees, and a roadside revegetation manual. And like so many of us at Xerces, Jennifer is also a gardener and has learned through trial and error what makes a garden successful.

---

Photo: Jennifer Hopwood

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Illustration is a powerful and important tool for conservation, bringing science to life and presenting complex information in an engaging format. In this episode, we are continuing our exploration of the role of art in science communication and research with two other talented artists, Maya Hutagalung and Dr. Madison Sankovitz. Rachel and I have had the good fortune to work with them both over the last few months because they have been Science Illustration Interns here at the Xerces Society.

Maya is a published illustrator whose work has appeared in a children’s book and been featured in gallery shows. She is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration, with a minor in Earth and Environmental Science, at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is most interested in how people intersect with their environment, and using art to communicate these connections. Madison is an illustrator and scientist passionate about pollinator conservation and communicating ecological research through art. Madison received a PhD in entomology from University of California Riverside and is currently a postdoc at the Boulder Bee Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder.

---

Illustration by Maya Hutagalung and Madison Sankovitz

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.