In summer 2023, VCE launched a project studying plant-insect interactions across New England. It's called the Pollinator Interactions on Plants project, or ‘PIP’ for short. All you need to help is a camera (or your phone) and the enthusiasm to document insects visiting flowers in your daily travels or in your yard.
By submitting photos of interactions, your data will help us answer valuable questions such as:
- How do plant-pollinator networks vary from place to place and season to season?
- What plant traits predict pollinator use?
- Can we rank species by their ability to attract and support specialized pollinators?
Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos) on a Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
Pollinators can be any flower-visiting animal. We are especially interested in collecting data on Butterflies and Moths (Lepidoptera), Bees and Wasps (Hymenoptera), Flower Flies (Diptera – Syrphidae), and even birds (like Hummingbirds) that nectar from flowers too. If you see wildlife interacting with a flower, document it!
Once you have a photo post it to iNaturalist and add it to our iNaturalist Project page. Make sure you record the plant the insect is using with the observation field ‘Interaction->Visited flower of’. If you don’t know the plant, you can post the flower as a 2nd iNaturalist observation and link the two observations using the field ‘Reference URL‘.
Field Studies — Summer 2025
This summer, University of Vermont graduate student and field naturalist Laura Costello is working with VCE to analyze the plant-pollinator data collected by community scientists. She’s focusing on nocturnal moths, quantifying their visitation among native plants by looking at the observations shared through the PiP project. Laura is also doing field work, gathering new data on pollinator visitation to White Bog Orchid (Platanthera dilatata), a native orchid species thought to be primarily pollinated by moths. Observing nighttime pollinators is challenging, so Laura is using automated time-lapse cameras to catch pollinators on throughout the day and night. Help Laura out by continuing to observe pollinators on plants and sharing your observations on iNaturalist.
