Nature on our Doorsteps: Wet weather can be challenging!

Rosaleen Dwyer is the County Heritage Officer at South Dublin County Council – every week she gives us an insight into nature on our doorsteps and the beautiful biodiversity of its plants and wildlife.

JULY 2023 was the wettest July on record. While wet summertime weather can be very disappointing for us, it can have serious effects in nature.

It can be especially challenging for flowers and pollinating insects.

If flowers are to be fertilised and produce seeds, pollen and nectar needs to be readily available to attract insects, and insects need to be busy visiting flowers.

Too much rain can affect each stage of this critical relationship.

Flowers produce rich sugary nectar in small pools in the centre of the flower.

These pools can become diluted by too much rain, making the nectar watery and less valuable as a food for insects.

Rain can also directly impact on the production of healthy pollen.

Hairy bumblebees that get caught in the rain can suffer if they cannot dry out quickly

If too much moisture is absorbed by pollen grains, some can swell up and burst.

This makes them useless for fertilising flowers.

When a flower is too wet, even if healthy pollen happens to be transferred by an insect, the incoming pollen grains cannot stick properly to the flower’s female parts.

The pollen grains will slide away before they get a chance to fertilise the flower.

To protect their pollen and nectar, some flowers remain closed in the rain, while other species have the option to pollinate themselves.

Flowers like Fuchsia that hang downwards away from the rain are protected during wet weather, but these still need insects to visit.

Rain, however, makes many insects cold.

Insects with hairy bodies are particularly at risk because raindrops can stick to and linger on fluffy bodies.

This adds extra weight to the insect, meaning more energy is used up when flying.

In wet summers, if insects do not fly at some stage every day to gather enough food, their chances of surviving to raise the next generation are decreased.

Flowers also may not produce enough seeds. A dry and warm late August and September would help.

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