Native plants are far more than familiar elements of our natural landscapes. They carry the history of thousands of years of adaptation, cooperation, and survival within ecosystems. Each one reveals how it became part of the world around it, shaping complex relationships that often go unnoticed. Exploring their world opens a window onto an essential dimension of biodiversity.
Unique Relationships Between Plants and Insects
Some native plants develop close ties with specific insects. These coevolutionary relationships can become indispensable to the functioning of ecosystems. The well-known example of milkweed and the monarch butterfly illustrates this, but it represents only one case among many. More than 90 % of herbivorous insects feed exclusively on a narrow range of native plants, which makes them particularly vulnerable to their decline. Like the monarch with milkweed, these are specialist insects, and the plants they depend on are their host plants.
Pollinators show the same dependence. Between 15 % and 60 % of North America’s native bee species are pollen specialists and rely entirely on native plants for their nourishment and reproduction. These figures highlight the extent to which native plants form a cornerstone of the interactions between insects and vegetation.
Reproductive Strategies Adapted to Local Species
Native plants are adapted to the local pollinators with which they evolved. This relationship ensures their reproduction and their integration into the food web1 . By producing essential resources for insects, such as caterpillars, they allow energy to circulate from one level of the living network to another. In this way, they help sustain the flow of energy that supports entire ecosystems.
Surprising Ecological Adaptations
Native plants also possess ecological adaptations that allow them to survive local conditions without human intervention. They stabilise soils, control erosion, and contribute to the water cycle. They provide food, shelter, and breeding habitats for local wildlife, including birds, mammals, and insects.
One striking fact underlines their importance: only 14 % of native plants produce 90 % of the food required by caterpillars, an essential element for maintaining food webs. Furthermore, incorporating native plants reduces competition with invasive species and limits their spread. They also play a role in reducing carbon footprints by storing CO₂ in their tissues and in the soil, while decreasing water runoff and chemical pollution affecting watersheds.
Linking Understanding and Action
Understanding these invisible relationships allows us to grasp the real importance of native plants in our living environments. To explore how this knowledge can be applied in urban or residential landscapes, you can read our complementary article, Every Seed Counts: The Power of Native Plants for Biodiversity.
A New Way of Looking at Local Plants
Native plants do more than occupy space: they support ecosystems. Through their unique relationships with insects, their reproductive strategies, and their ecological adaptations, they play a central role in maintaining biodiversity. Exploring their world means understanding how each species contributes to the balance of life. Behind every native plant lies a complex and essential story, closely tied to the health of our environments.
1 Food web: A food web represents all the feeding interactions among living organisms within an ecosystem. [Source: Dictionnaire d’agroécologie, https://dicoagroecologie.fr/dictionnaire/reseaux-trophiques/]
Sources
Akène. (n.d.). Articles of Akène's blog. https://akene.ca/blogs/publications
National Wildlife Federation. (2023, April). Plant 50% to 70% native - Benefit more wildlife. NWF Blog. https://blog.nwf.org/2023/04/plant-50-to-70-native-benefit-more-wildlife/
Tallamy, D. (n.d.). What’s the rush? [Conference]. Homegrown National Park. https://homegrownnationalpark.org/whats-the-rush/