News from the Italian Parks

WHERE DO MOTHS FLY?

This is the mystery that we will try to solve in the coming months in the La Mandria Park: how are moths and insects playing the role of nocturnal pollinators? Very little is known about them, there is a lack of in-depth research in our territories and in Italy in general. Only one thing is certain: they share the same fate as bees and wild daytime pollinators, i.e., they are in obvious decline due to many concurrent causes (intensive agriculture, pesticides, climate change, habitat alteration and disappearance, nocturnal lighting).

The importance of animal pollinators, of which insects represent a large majority, is evident: actually, they are responsible for the fertilisation of around 90% of the world's plant species. Among these are many cultivated species on which man depends for food, fodder for livestock, medicines, wood, cellulose… Not to mention the fact that plants are the basis of the earth's food chains - they provide habitats where many living organisms find food and shelter, they provide essential ecosystem services by producing oxygen, regulating the climate, protecting the soil from erosion, and preventing hydrological instability.

Thanks to the substantial funding that the Ministry for Education, University and Research has granted to the project "Dove volano le Falene – I cittadini e la scienza per indagare la biodiversità notturna (Where Do Moths Fly – Citizens and Science to Investigate Nocturnal Biodiversity)", suggested by the Park Authority in collaboration with the Arnica cooperative and the University of Turin, it will be possible in the coming months to undertake monitoring of nocturnal pollinators. This will involve schools, citizens and municipal administrations in meetings and evenings in the area.

Part of the funding will be used to set up an immersive itinerary "in the shoes of a moth" at the Brero farmstead and to improve the didactic apiary of the farmstead, enriching it with plants useful to pollinators.