Surprising things butterflies do for your farm

Butterflies are a sight to behold. A group of them is referred to as a kaleidoscope, and besides a colourful bouquet of flowers, a kaleidoscope of white identical butterflies is truly the most mesmerizing sight. Most of us would agree to that.

But besides the fleeting beauty that these creatures add to our lives, butterflies and other pollinators are responsible for a third of the food that we consume, according to sciencing.com. And that’s barely all they do. Below are some of the things that butterflies unnoticeably do for your farm.

Pollinating your plants

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This might be the most crucial function that butterflies perform. As adult butterflies drink nectar from flowers, their wings and bodies will often pick up pollen. And as soon as they land on another plant, the pollen is transferred onto the plant, a crucial act of helping to pollinate the plant species. You might be wondering how butterflies reach deep into the bloom of the flower to get the nectar. This, they do by the use of a long proboscis that stays coiled up when not in use.

Maintaining the balance of organisms on your farm

Butterflies, before turning into the spectacle they become at adulthood, go through the larval stage. During this period, the caterpillars feed on leaves, flowers and pods of certain plant species. This helps to keep certain plant species from propagating out of control.

While adult butterflies rarely feed on insects or animals, certain species such as the harvester help keep aphid populations under control by feeding on them.

Ecosystem barometer

The presence or absence of butterflies on your farm is a huge indicator of whether or not the ecosystem is healthy. Simply put, butterflies are extremely sensitive to their surroundings. This includes factors like pesticides, temperature as well as rainfall amounts.

Shifts in these factors will affect migration patterns. Similarly, loss of habitat due to defoliation or other human activities such as construction, exposes butterflies to predation and also disturbs patterns of migration. This in turn drastically affects the presence of butterflies in a certain area.

Due to their aforementioned sensitivity to habitat and climate change, ecologists monitor them as a way of observing the effects of habitat fragmentation as well as climate change.