Holston Rivers Volunteer Helps Discover Flower Flies on the Blue Ridge Parkway

VMN volunteers have been participating in several biodiversity surveys on the Blue Ridge Parkway, organized by the National Park Service’s Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center. The most recent effort has been a survey of flower flies (family Syrphidae), which are important pollinators of native plants. A significant section of the parkway remained unstudied, however, until this year, when Russ McDaniel of the Holston Rivers Chapter stepped up to the task. He visited the Fisher’s Peak Meadows and Groundhog Mountain areas of the parkway over the summer, collected flower flies (under an NPS collection permit), and delivered them to NPS scientist Paul Super for identification. Paul recently reported that Russ found twelve different flower fly species at his sites, including at least one species not previously identified for the Virginia section of the Blue Ridge Parkway.