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Kelp forests, which provide numerous benefits such as sheltering biodiversity and sequestering carbon, are facing rapid decline in California due to factors like marine heat waves and disease outbreaks. These forests are the largest coastal marine habitat on Earth and are highly biologically diverse. Despite their importance, kelp forests are often overlooked and undervalued. They are estimated to be worth around $500 billion annually, and they play a crucial role in combating climate change by absorbing carbon. Efforts are being made to restore kelp forests, including removing excess sea urchins and reintroducing otters as predators. However, the future of kelp forests remains uncertain due to ongoing climate change. [Extracted from the article]

In 2023, as a wet winter following drought promised another superbloom, authorities acted fast to protect both people and habitat, announcing in February Walker Canyon's immediate closure to visitors. Amid blooming California poppies, the state's official flower, tourists walk off-trail along a new path carved out by previous visitors to Walker Canyon in the spring of 2019. Transformed by heavy rains after years of drought, the dun-colored hillsides of Southern California's Walker Canyon (above) exploded with carpets of vibrant orange poppies in spring 2019 - as once-calm country roads became gridlocked by visitors vying to see the flowers (below). [Extracted from the article]

GOLDENROD Goldenrods are critical late-season plants for bumble bees (brown-belted bumble bee, Bombus griseocollis, Wisconsin, right). In a field of wildflowers just outside Baltimore, Maryland, a female common eastern bumble bee makes her way methodically from bloom to bloom around a bright yellow clump of cup plant in late August. ASTER Bumble bees (lemon cuckoo bumble bee, Bombus citrinus, Wisconsin, right) are active from early spring through late fall, so it's important to provide a variety of flowering plants that bloom throughout that entire period. [Extracted from the article]

A bright splash of color amidst the muted tones of a flooded forest, the prothonotary warbler is nicknamed "swamp canary" for its vivid golden feathers and the male's lyrical springtime song. "That sweet, sweet, sweet song is a sound that says you're in a Carolina swamp", says Jay Keck, a habitat manager for National Wildlife Federation affiliate South Carolina Wildlife Federation (SCWF). Project Prothonotary Prothonotary warblers have declined in part because they are such habitat specialists. [Extracted from the article]

In response to concerns about the red knot, in 2013, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), a regional regulatory body, restricted the bay's horseshoe crab bait harvests to male crabs only and set an annual harvest quota of no more than 500,000 Delaware Bay crabs. "Shorebirds are among the fastest-declining groups of birds, and the fastest-declining shorebirds are species that migrate through Delaware Bay and depend on the eggs of horseshoe crabs", Niles says. Winter 2023 Each May through June, the Delaware Bay attracts hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs, the world's largest gathering of these important and imperiled "living fossils.". [Extracted from the article]

This article from National Wildlife highlights the importance of planting milkweed to support pollinators, particularly the monarch butterfly. Planting milkweed not only benefits monarchs but also a variety of other insect species, including bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies, ants, beetles, and true bugs. The article emphasizes the need to choose milkweed species native to one's region to support different communities of specialist butterflies, moths, and other insects, as well as generalist pollinators. To find out which milkweed species are native to a specific area and the insects they support, readers are encouraged to use the National Wildlife Federation's Native Plant Finder tool. [Extracted from the article]

Female birds have long been overlooked and understudied by bird watchers and scientists, who tend to focus on male birds due to their bright colors and conspicuous behavior. This bias is reflected in bird guides, reference materials, and museum collections, where male birds are overrepresented. However, this male favoritism can have significant consequences for research and conservation efforts. For example, the study of bird song has been affected by male bias, with scientists traditionally considering singing to be a male trait. Additionally, conservation plans for neotropical migratory birds often overlook sexual segregation, leading to the loss of winter habitat for female birds. The field of ornithology is also dominated by men, which may contribute to the male bias. Efforts are being made to promote inclusivity and appreciation of female birds, such as the Female Bird Day organized by the Galbatross Project. Overall, paying more attention to female birds is important as they play a crucial role in the survival and reproduction of bird species. [Extracted from the article]

GOLDENRODS In general, the best keystone plants for caterpillars are trees while bees depend on non-woody plants. Particularly important to this bee - and to 50 other pollen-specialist bees in the eastern and midwestern United States alone - are asters in the genus Symphyotrichum, which also are used as host plants by the caterpillars of 100 moth and butterfly species. FEATURES As wildlife gardeners, we know that native plants are better at supporting native wildlife than nonnatives. [Extracted from the article]

While many gardeners store their milkweed seeds in the refrigerator until spring, it's better to get them into the ground in fall. Come autumn, as temperatures drop and summer flowers fade, gardeners in most parts of the country turn their attention to the annual chore known as "fall cleanup" then assume they're done until the following spring. Because many plants stop flowering by late summer, maintaining those that bloom into or through fall is critical for pollinators, including migrating monarch butterflies and native bees. [Extracted from the article]

Attracting wasps (safely) To invite wasps to your garden, "grow a diversity of native flowering plants", recommends biologist Heather Holm. "Despite their poor public image, wasps are incredibly important for the world's economy and ecosystems", writes University College London biologist and wasp champion Seirian Sumner in The Conversation. Because all wasp larvae are carnivorous, their parents must either hunt (as do about 30,000 of the world's more than 100,000 known wasp species) or lay their eggs on or in the body of another insect so larvae can consume the host after hatching (about 80,000 species). [Extracted from the article]

But we also need to look to native natural enemies, says Raupp, who reports that mantids, assassin bugs and spiders already are gobbling up lanternflies. DEPARTMENTS Neither a fly, as its name implies, nor a moth, which it resembles, the invasive spotted lanternfly is a beautiful bug - but a very bad one, at least in the United States. Some secrets to its success: "Unlike most sap-feeding insects, the lanternfly doesn't lay eggs only on a handful of host plants", says Urban. [Extracted from the article]

PHOTO (COLOR): Plant labels add educational value to a drought garden in California (top) and a pollinator garden in Ontario (above). According to Mary Phillips, head of Garden for Wildlife™ for the National Wildlife Federation, wildlife gardeners often must take such steps to make their native plant properties acceptable to neighbors. In Ottawa, Ontario, gardener Berit Erickson also labels plants. [Extracted from the article]