World Biodiversity Day: Trees attracting bees and butterflies planted on IFGTB campus in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: On the World Biodiversity Day, marked on May 22 across the world, scientists at Indian Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding (IFGTB) planted saplings of tree species that specifically attract butterflies and birds and play a role in their pollination activities.
Research students and interns were also taught the importance of biodiversity and how to approach restoration of diversity.
The 3.36-hectares botanical garden inside IFGTB, often a favourite among regular morning walkers on the forest college campus, attracts 26 to 30 species of butterflies.
“In my three-decade service, we have seen at least 26 different species,” said scientist B Nagarajan.
“While all the butterflies continue to visit us, the numbers have come down over the years,” he said. “This is mainly because of extensive urbanisation which has led to an absence of vegetation and water bodies. Simple satellite images of the ground 25 years back and now will show that. So, butterflies, birds and bees do not have water puddles or mud puddles to play in,” he added.
Nagarajan said butterflies and bees play a crucial role in biodiversity as pollinators.
“If we do not have butterflies and bees, we are losing out on their pollination services. Only if they pollinate, do we get our edible fruits. They are crucial links in our food chain.”.
“If we don’t attract the usual number of butterflies and bees, our trees’ seed production will also drop, which will eventually prevent growth of our green cover,” he said.
To address this issue, scientists and research students planted 50 saplings of species which specifically attract butterflies and seeds. The species planted including Butea Monosperma, Erythrina Indica, Umbrella palm, Cassia fistula and Erythrina Subarosa.
“All these tree species play specific roles in a butterflies and bees lifecycle, right from simply attracting it, to inducing them to lay eggs, simply hosting them and providing them nectar,” said Nagarajan.
The students were also shown the existing trees, their roles in attracting birds, which in turn will invite more seeds to get dropped in the garden. They were taken to the institute’s herbarium and shown many rare species of plants collected and documented.