Organic Gardening and Alternatives to Pesticides
Gardens inevitably attract insect pests. How can you use organic gardening techniques to protect your plants from pests and maintain a garden that is safe for pollinators and other animals?
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Make a Picnic for Ants…For Science!
Create a picnic for ants with the Ant Picnic citizen science project to help scientists understand the dietary preferences of this crucial speices.
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Citizen science projects featuring insects, spiders and their relatives
Seven large-scale citizen science projects that you can help with right now! Help scientists collect data on our insect friends.
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3 Ways to Help Save Monarch Butterflies
Monarch butterflies face an uncertain future. Their numbers have plummeted in recent decades. Here are some ways you can help.
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Urban Gardens a Haven for Pollinators
Insect-friendly urban gardens show great promise to be havens for bees and other pollinators, securing their future and allowing them to thrive.
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Book Review: Never Home Alone
Never Home Alone is a 256 page deep dive into the mind of a chatty biologist. Every chapter focuses on a distinct use-case for biodiversity preservation.
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Intense Lawn Mowing Lowers Biodiversity, Favors Pests
Mowing lawns less frequently and allowing grass to grow may result in greater plant and pollinator biodiversity and fewer pests. By Neha Jain Looks can be deceiving: a uniformly well-mowed lawn might look good, but ecologically, it is not desirable. According to a recent study that analyzed the results of many studies on lawn mowing, more intensely mowed lawns showed lower plant and insect diversity and a greater abundance of pests. According to the researchers, adopting low-intensity lawn management would bring about a host of environmental benefits including cutting down…
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Caterpillars Count
From big to small, we all count. Even caterpillars. Caterpillars are important Caterpillars are familiar to us. When a butterfly flutters past you, you know that it was once a caterpillar. Now it’s time to count the caterpillars and arthropods (creatures, like insects, with segmented bodies) that you see to help scientists understand how their populations are changing. You can get started today with the Caterpillars Count! project. Even though this project doesn’t just focus on caterpillars, who can resist a good alliteration? In 2015, Dr. Allen Hurlbert of North…
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Life Cycle of a Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly
The pipevine swallowtail butterfly, Battus philenor, is a relatively small black swallowtail with gorgeous, iridescent blue scaling.
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Inside the World of Fire Ants
In this video, Dr. Joe Hanson and the It’s OK to Be Smart team deliver everything you didn’t realize you wanted to know about fire ants. Special appearance by ant-decapitating flies. Enjoy! GotScience.org translates complex research findings into accessible insights on science, nature, and technology. Help keep GotScience free: Donate or visit our gift shop. For more science news subscribe to our weekly digest.
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