(Return matching records with ALLANY of these words.)    ................................................................ state Choose State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illiniois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississipi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming District of Columbia    regions Choose region Pacific Southwest Midwest Southeast Northeast Mountain-Prairie Alaska California-Nevada All Regions    ................................................................ ................................................................ Journal Entry   Back Orchid Pollinator Identified in Illinois and Iowa Midwest Region, December 1, 2004 Print Friendly Version This past summer, a Region 3 SCEP student and graduate student at Northeastern Illinois University conducted night time hawkmoth surveys to determine possible pollinators of the federally threatened eastern prairie fringed orchid in Illinois and Iowa. A long held belief was that the natural pollinators of this orchid were lacking -- hence hand-pollination of these orchids occuring yearly in Illinois. The thought was that after pollinators are identified, then one could determine what the larval host plants are. Then, we could inventory plant specicies at the orchid sites to determine if these larval plants are present, and to what degree. Increasing orchid pollinator larval plants may increase the numbers of orchid pollinators at the sites and in turn increase the chances of natural pollination of the orchids. The study was conducted on six sites, five in Illinois and one in Iowa, during the bloom period for this orchid which is approximately the two weeks before and after the fourth of July. Two light sheets were used, one using a 15-watt U.V. light and one using a 750-watt mercury vapor light. One to two funnel traps were used per site and then a plant species analysis was done at each site. Nectar measurements were also taken from ten flowers per site once in the evening and once at dawn. A total of 19 nights were spent observing and collecting. A typical night consisted of arriving about 5:00 pm taking nectar measurements, setting up the equipment and then visually observing from about 8:00 pm to 4:30 am and then taking nectar measurements again. Hawkmoth specimens can only be confirmed pollinators if they have orchid pollinia attached to the proboscis. So, although numerous hawkmoths were caught only one species caught at two different sites exhibited orchid pollinia on the proboscis. This was the Hermit Sphinx (Sphinx eremitus). Two specimens were caught at Hildy Prairie in Grundy County, Ill., both with orchid pollinia attached (one with one pollinium attached and the other with three pollinia). One other Sphinx eremitus was caught at Baldwin Marsh in Jackson County, Iowa, with about 20 orchid pollinia attached to its proboscis of 4.2 cm. Host plants of the Sphinx eremitus include bee-balm, bugleweed, mints, and sage. One hawkmoth species, the Carolina Sphinx (Manduca sexta) was netted actually nectaring on an orchid, but no pollinia was present on its proboscis of 8.2 cm. The Manduca sexta larva is known as the tobacco hornworm which is a pest on tomato, tobacco, and potato plants. At this point it is only considered a nectaring visitor or nectar thief of the orchid. Preliminary data on the plant species analysis of each site tend to show that the more high quality "natural" sites determined using the Floristic Quality Index from Swink & Wilhelm (1994), have more different species and higher total numbers of hawkmoths in general. Further analysis of this data is in progress. It must be mentioned that although this study confirmed only one species of hawkmoth in Illinois and Iowa as a confirmed pollinator of the orchid, theoretically any species of hawkmoth with a proboscis long enough to reach the nectar in the orchid's nectar spur could be an orchid pollinator. There is just not a lot of other data. Hopefully the study can be repeated again this summer to add to the information of eastern prairie fringed orchid pollinators. Contact Info: Midwest Region Public Affairs, 612-713-5313, charles_traxler@fws.gov Send to: From: Notes: ..........................................................................................

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