Guest author, Chris Cosma, Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the University of California, Riverside, shared this October 23, 2023 article about his web application called The Butterfly Net that helps gardeners know which native plants are most supportive of butterflies and moths.

Which native plants are the best for insects?

Native insects, including bees and butterflies, are declining in the U.S. One of the primary threats is the loss of native plant species that they rely on for food and other resources.

By increasing the extent and connectivity of native habitat in human-modified landscapes, native plant gardening and landscaping has an integral role to play in insect conservation. Our yards and gardens can become safe havens for insects—providing them the native plant resources they need to thrive, and securing their critical ecosystem services like pollination. 

However, not all native plants are created equal when it comes to supporting insects. We can maximize the conservation value of native plant gardening and landscaping by selecting certain “keystone” native plant species—those that provide the most resources to the highest number of insects.

Using just a few of these keystone plant species can help stabilize entire insect communities, increasing their resilience to climate change and other threats. However, the identity of keystone plant species varies geographically, making it tricky to determine which ones to use at each location. 

To tackle this problem, Chris Cosma, a PhD candidate at UC Riverside, has developed a web application called The Butterfly Net. The tool can be accessed here: https://ctcosma.shinyapps.io/the_butterfly_net/. 

Just select your location on the map, and The Butterfly Net will provide a list of the most ecologically-important native plant species for native insects near you. Behind the scenes, the tool analyzes the complex networks of interactions between local native plants and insects to identify the keystone species responsible for stabilizing the whole network.  

For now, the tool is a beta version focused on Lepidoptera, the insect order that includes butterflies and moths. Lepidoptera are one of the most ecologically-important groups of insects, providing pollination services for wild and agricultural plants, and serving as a critical food source for birds, bats, and other wildlife.

The Butterfly Net will help you discover the most important host plants (those eaten by caterpillars) and nectar plants (those pollinated by adults) to use at your location.

Chris has also recently started a working group to expand the tool to bees and other groups of insects, in collaboration with Calscape. You can read about the project here: https://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/news/morpho-welcomes-second-cohort. Stay tuned for updates!