Winter 2023

ACADEMIC CORNER
INSECTS: MAKING A BUZZ
ABOUT GREEN ROOFS
In his latest Academic Corner column, Dr Tom Young of TEP
focuses on entomology and the impact of green roofs on insect
habitats. To help find out more about the role of entomologists
and what can be done to improve green roofs as habitats for
insects, he taps into the knowledge of expert Dr Konstantinos
Tsiolis of Pollinating London Together…
Above: Dr Tom Young, article author.
Green roofs can provide fantastic habitat for insects
in urban areas. With this in mind, GRO has recently
helped to publish a children’s book on this topic in
collaboration with Tales from Mother Earth, which is available
to buy at https://talesfrommotherearth.co.uk/product/
journey-to-the-green-roof/. However, this is an area I know
very little about, and so to explore this topic further I thought
I would enlist the help of Dr Konstantinos Tsiolis, who is a very
knowledgeable pollinator ecologist and entomologist, who works
for Pollinating London Together.
The academic literature on the topic of insects and green roofs
is still relatively sparse, but has improved in recent years as the
role of green infrastructure in urban ecology becomes better
known.
In general, the consensus is that green roofs, compared to
normal roofs, attract significantly more biodiversity to cities,
which includes birds, insects and other invertebrates (Wooster et
al. 2022). This can have knock-on effects across the food chain.
For example, a study on a large green roof in New York found
that bat feeding activity on the roof was strongly correlated with
the presence of a certain type of moth. This moth was attracted
to the green roof due to the vegetation and habitat provided,
which in turn attracted the bats, providing them with a valuable
food source (Partridge et al. 2020).
However, all green roofs are not the same, and changes in
vegetation type, vegetation coverage, substrate type and
additional microhabitat features all combine to determine how
effective green roofs can be for insects (MacIvor & Ksiazek
2015). In addition, the size of the green roof and type / quality
of surrounding habitats all play a part (Ksiazek-Mikenas et al.
2018), and native plants have been shown to increase insect
abundance on green roofs (Fenoglio et al. 2023).
To better understand how people become entomologists and
what can be done to improve green roofs as insect habitats, I
asked Dr Konstantinos Tsiolis a few questions about his career
and work with Pollinating London Together (PLT).
Tom Young (TY): What is your
background?
Konstantinos Tsiolis (KT): I come
from a small rural community in Cyprus
where the region’s primary income
was traditionally from crops such as
hazelnuts, almonds, vines, cherries and
apples. I have grown up working on our
family farm, helping cultivate crops and
selling our produce at various markets.
The quality of our family life was always
dependent on the yield of our farm,
and I have experienced first-hand
the frustration and negative financial
impacts of low yields at times. My
parents have only completed primary
education but are rich in valuable
empirical farming skills and knowledge.
However, I realised that the lack of
access to scientific knowledge was a
limiting factor to sustainably successful
farming practices. Having realised
the value of science and education, I
decided to enrol in higher education
in the UK to gain knowledge and skills
which I could use to contribute towards
my passion for ecology and agriculture.
One of the areas that immensely
fascinated me during my undergraduate
studies was pollination ecology. I was
amazed that approximately 70% of
270 bee species in the UK are groundnesters
(Else & Edwards 2018), and
several are considered good crop
pollinators. For instance, solitary
ground-nesting bee species are the
UK’s most economically important
pollinators of apple crops (Garratt et
al. 2016). Nevertheless, little is known
about where they nest in agricultural
landscapes and their specific nesting
habitat preferences. The eagerness to
study them and discover more about
their biology led me to study their
nesting preferences in commercial fruit
orchards for my Master’s degree and
PhD. Since the spring of 2022, I have
been working for Pollinating London
Together (PLT), assessing the pollinator
and pollinator-friendly planting diversity
in the City of London and adjacent
areas, and spreading awareness of
pollinator diversity and importance.
TY: What is an entomologist?
KT: Entomologists study insects,
either amateur, as a career or both.
Over half of the described two million
living species are insects and have
12 GREENSCAPE WINTER 2023 • www.greenscapemag.co.uk