Essays on Invertebrate Conservation

WINGS ESSAYS ON INVERTEBRATE CONSERVATION

THE XERCESSOCIETY FALL 2009 CONTENTS

Introduction Scott Hoffman Black Page 3.

Piggyback Conservation Claire Kremen Invertebrates are generally overlooked in many conservation efforts. Despite their importance they often benefit by chance rather than intention.Page 4.

Butterflies After Fire: Ashes or Phoenix? Scott Hoffman Black Controlled fire is widely used to maintain healthy grassland, but careful planning is needed to avoid harming butterflies.Page 9.

Game Birds, the Farm Bill, and Invertebrates: A Win-Win-Win Situation Wendell Gilgert In many regions of North America, hunting has been a major motivation for creating habitat that benefits insects. Page 14.

Missed Opportunities on the Grassy Knoll: Saving the Northeast’s Grassland Invertebrates Sacha Spector Government grants are given to manage farm grasslands for wildlife, and such management can also offer great potential for invertebrate conservation. Page 19.

Can a Bird Save a Living Fossil? Piotr Naskrecki Horseshoe crabs seem like relics from a prehistoric era. Their future is closely tied to the fortunes of a migratory shorebird, the red knot. Page 24.

Xerces News Xerces adds new regional offices; major grants awarded to the Society to protect pollinator habitat; and a change in the basic membership rate. Page 29.

WINGS Introduction

Scott Hoffman Black

During the 1990s I worked for conserva- In this issue of Wings, we explore tion organizations devoted to protect- the idea of “piggyback” conservation ing big places and big animals: ancient — how the conservation of one species forests, wild rivers, spotted owls, salm- can lead to the protection of others. The on. Because it was focused on saving first essay lays the groundwork by dis- large, charismatic wildlife, the con- cussing what this concept means and servation community within which I brings us full circle to an instance of worked did not think much about tiny vertebrate conservation piggybacked creatures such as insects. But with my onto pollinators. We look at the situa- background in ecology — specifically, tion of a rare butterfly that literally can- working with invertebrates — I often not escape the heat during controlled thought about how our work provided fire to improve habitat. Two articles ex- habitat for these little-thought-about plore the ways that the Farm Bill’s pro- animals. When you protect a large land- visions for providing bird habitat may scape, you are, of course, providing for help or harm insects depending on the invertebrates. By not logging, building circumstances. Last, we delve into the roads, or over-grazing, you are protect- case of horseshoe crabs, for which sur- ing habitat for both big and small, but vival may depend on efforts to protect the latter are seldom part of the plan. the red knot, a migratory shorebird.

Conservation programs for animals such as the bobwhite quail can benefit invertebrates — and may in fact rely on them for success — but often overlook them during planning. Pho- tograph by Bryan Eastham, courtesy of iStockphoto.

FALL 2009 Piggyback Conservation

Claire Kremen

When I was a young staff member at members of an ecosystem whose habi- the Xerces Society in the early 1990s, tat needs aren’t being explicitly consid- our constant challenge was to generate ered. For example, the excellent work interest in conserving invertebrates, of Hawai‘i-based entomologist Dan their habitats, and the critical functions Rubinoff clearly showed that conserva- they provide for maintaining biodiver- tion planning for the California gnat- sity and ecosystem health. Nearly two catcher (Polioptila californica), intended decades later, it is still my instinct to as a flagship for California’s endangered “piggyback” the goals of insect conser- coastal sage-scrub ecosystem, did not vation onto other more popular or at- adequately protect several rare moth tention-getting objectives. But is that species, including the electra buckmoth still necessary? Some recent events (Hemileuca electra), a subspecies of which have made me wonder whether per- is found only in this scrub ecosystem. haps — just perhaps — insects and other The buckmoth required more land for “orphan taxa” may yet take center stage survival than the gnatcatcher did. in conservation efforts of the future. In my work designing protected But first, let’s talk about piggyback- areas in Madagascar, which first started ing, the insect conservationist’s fore- during my days with the Xerces Society most tool, in which we use existing (see the summer 1992 issue of Wings), I projects, legislative efforts, or environ- had several opportunities to piggyback mental policies that promote conserva- insects onto other conservation work. tion objectives of relatively wide public Madagascar is one of the “hotspots” of interest to advance more-esoteric con- global biodiversity. In this fabulous is- servation goals. The time-honored “um- land environment, evolution acting in brella species” approach embodies this isolation from the rest of the world has concept. In theory, choosing high-pro- produced a unique and highly diverse file, charismatic, and area-demanding flora and fauna; in many groups, more species such as grizzly bears, pandas, than 90 percent of species are found or golden lion tamarins as “flagships” only in Madagascar. One group of but- for conservation has the incidental ef- terflies, the satyrines, is represented on fect of protecting many other species. the island by a very large number of In the United States, the Endangered closely related species (a phenomenon Species Act requires the protection of biologists call adaptive radiation). The adequate habitat for a listed species to genus Heteropsis is represented by ap- recover, providing the potential for proximately sixty species on the island, these species to serve as umbrellas. The and the genus Strabena by fifty species. problem is that this umbrella concept The satyrines have the misfortune of doesn’t always work to protect those being small, brown, and quite difficult

WINGS Satyrine butterflies have been important in planning new parks on Madagascar. Unlike many species on that island, satyrines may appear drab at first glance; looked at more closely they are really quite beautiful. Strabena argyrina, photographed by David Lees. to identify to species. Although many with many other colleagues, helped the people do not consider these butterflies Malagasy government achieve an even attractive enough to be worthy of at- more ambitious target, identifying pri- tention, they are actually very beautiful ority areas to triple the size of the pro- on close inspection. Not surprisingly, tected area network to cover 10 percent this difficult group was poorly known of the entire island. Along with the data even by entomologists, and, working on plants and vertebrates that are typi- with my colleague David Lees of Lon- cally employed, we assembled informa- don’s Natural History Museum, I found tion on ants and butterflies to use in de- many new species. In addition, we con- veloping the plan. Our study (published sistently found this group of butterflies in the international journal Science in to be highly informative for conserva- 2008) conclusively demonstrated that it tion priorities. It’s quite unlikely that is essential to include multiple indica- the public would ever accept building tor groups in order to develop effective a conservation plan based solely on conservation plans for biodiversity. Pro- these dun-colored insects, but we used tecting the lemurs would not provide data on this group, along with data on a good outcome for the ants, and vice lemurs, birds, small mammals, and versa. This finding echoed earlier work tiger beetles, to design Madagascar’s by Craig Moritz in the wet forests of largest park, in the remote rain forest Australia, which showed that data on of the Masoala Peninsula. Just recently, insects provided far greater spatial reso- Dimby Razafimpahanana, Alison Cam- lution for conservation planning than eron, Tom Allnutt, and myself, along did vertebrate data.

FALL 2009 California’s Central Valley is dominated by agriculture, with habitat restricted to the surrounding hills and riparian areas. As part of the effort to re-wild parts of the landscape in the agricultural areas, hedgerows have been planted for wildlife. Photograph by John Anderson, courtesy of Hedgerow Farms.

Taking another tack in California’s row-to-fencerow farmed lands to bring Central Valley, an agricultural region back the quail, pheasants, and rabbits. that produces a quarter of the United Others are pursuing compliance with States’ fruits and vegetables, I am on a California’s water-quality legislation campaign to re-wild the monocultures and recognize that vegetated waterways that now blanket this huge expanse. will filter out the fertilizers and pesti- Through restoration of native plant cides that have become so ubiquitous hedgerows, the goal is to bring back in today’s agriculture. some of the ecological services, such Relatively few growers, however, as pollination and pest control, that are drawn to plant hedgerows simply natural habitat used to provide within because hedgerows may increase pop- agro-ecosystems. Many growers are re- ulations of beneficial insects that sup- ceptive to the hedgerow concept, but press pests or pollinate their crops. So for varying reasons. For some, it’s be- we piggyback this concept onto water cause they like to hunt, and they need filtration and management, aesthetic to restore some habitat on their fence beauty, windbreaks, and hunting. Cur-

WINGS rently, in a long-term project in nearby gardens and “victory gardens,” organic Yolo County, California, my laboratory produce, and community-supported group at the University of California at agriculture, as well as in diversified Berkeley is painstakingly document- farming systems, suggests that people ing the economic benefits to growers of are starting to appreciate and even de- planting hedgerows, through reduced mand more sustainable forms of agri- need to use insecticides for pest control culture. In addition, greater awareness or to rent honey bee colonies for crop of climate change is accompanied by a pollination. growing realization that monoculture Honey bees themselves have re- systems (including monocultures of cently brought attention to the value of honey bees) may be less resilient than ecosystem services fostered by natural more-diversified production systems. areas. The U.S. apiculture industry has This may be the time for a sea change been hard-hit of late by Colony Collapse in how we grow food. Disorder, a mysterious ailment in which By partnering our research with a worker bees disappear and colonies die. pollinator outreach program run by the The American public has become in- Xerces Society, our pollinator project in creasingly aware of the problems faced Yolo County has had far greater impact by honey bees and the effects those than I ever imagined. For example, after problems may have on agriculture and hundreds of pollinator workshops and the food supply. At the same time, a meetings, the Xerces Society has con- growing interest in slow food and lo- vinced California’s Natural Resource cally grown food, urban community Conservation Service (part of the U.S.

Recent declines in honey bees have underscored the importance of native bees for crop pollination. Leafcutter bee (genus Megachile) photographed by Rollin Coville.

FALL 2009 Small insects such as this sweat bee (genus Halictus) may now be carrying the burden of conserving rare plants and animals. Photograph by Rollin Coville.

Department of Agriculture) to provide cannot legislatively be part of the plan, 90 percent of the costs of habitat resto- the Yolo planners specifically want us ration to farmers willing to implement a to assess what economic benefit the “pollinator conservation hedgerow”— a Habitat Conservation Plan would pro- strip of pollinator-attractive flowering vide to growers through the enhance- forbs on both sides of a hedgerow of ment of pollinator populations and the flowering shrubs — thereby providing a pollination services they provide on diverse community of pollinators with nearby farms. The planners hope that floral resources throughout their long identifying these ancillary benefits of flight season. This year, twenty-two conservation will make the overall plan growers are receiving funds to plant more acceptable to growers and encour- such hedgerows, restoring in a small age them to adopt it. Have I lived to see way some of the functions of the fab- the day when vertebrate conservation ulous “bee meadows” that John Muir rides on the backs of charismatic (and chronicled in his nineteenth-century valuable) pollinators? writings about the Central Valley. And, in a stunning reversal of the usual piggybacking, the Yolo Natural Claire Kremen, a counselor of the Xerces Heritage Program has asked us to help Society, is an assistant professor at the integrate pollinator conservation into University of California, Berkeley. She was a multi-species Habitat Conservation a member of a National Academy of Sci- Plan for the county that will protect ences panel examining the status of pol- over thirty threatened or endangered linators in North America, and recently vertebrate and invertebrate species. received a MacArthur Fellowship for her Although none of the pollinators in work in ecology, agriculture, and biodiver- question are at-risk species and thus sity conservation.

WINGS Butterflies After Fire: Ashes or Phoenix?

Scott Hoffman Black

Consternation, frustration, dismay — No matter how you feel about it, these are some of the emotions that controlled burning is an increasingly can sweep over a lepidopterist when common management tool, and those considering the use of fire to manage on all sides can agree that fire has long grasslands. There are valid reasons to played an important role in native eco- hold these feelings, since lepidopterists systems. Prehistorically, most fires were can point to numerous examples of but- probably caused by lightning, but once terfly loss from meadows following pre- humans obtained the necessary skills scribed fires. The other side of the coin, to start fires they began using them to though, is that controlled burning is shape landscapes. Some Native Ameri- used to maintain quality habitat. Land cans burned grasslands year after year managers believe that fire is essential to to keep the forests from encroaching many natural areas and that without it and to maintain favorable habitat for the areas would become degraded and the game and plants they traditionally lose biological diversity overall. hunted and harvested.

Controlled fire is an important and widely used tool for managing grasslands and forests. Photograph by Rod Gilbert.

FALL 2009 Pioneers across the American changing them from open, flower-rich landscape used fire to clear forests, but prairie to shaded areas. Paralleling the gradually a different view of fire took decline in grasslands, the animals that hold, with fire coming to be seen as rely on them have been relegated to something that needed to be suppressed ever smaller patches. Grasslands and wherever possible. From log cabins built meadows now contain some of the most by settlers on the prairie to sprawling imperiled plants and animals in North mansions that now dot the hills above America. Several butterflies listed under Los Angeles, the construction of per- the U.S. Endangered Species Act require manent structures throughout the grasslands for survival, and other rare country’s landscape changed attitudes species such as the Ottoe skipper (Hespe- to wildfire. The arrival of Smokey Bear ria ottoe) and the regal fritillary (Speyeria in the American consciousness in 1944 idalia) have been seriously reduced on settled the debate: forest fires are bad numerous reserves by controlled burns. and should not be allowed to burn. So what can be done? Small areas There was only one problem. With that support extremely rare species fire suppressed, the American landscape need to be managed or they will no began to change. Forests grew thicker longer provide viable habitat, but the and trees encroached on meadows and management practices we use could prairies. In some areas this succession lead to the local extirpation or overall eventually resulted in the degradation extinction of some of these species. Can and loss of these grasslands. The prob- prescribed fire and rare prairie butter- lem has been compounded by the use flies coexist? of such lands for agriculture, housing, The mardon skipper (Polites mardon) and other developments. is one butterfly that has evolved with Historically, the vast expanse of fire. Found only in Washington, south- North America’s prairies offered suf- ern Oregon, and northern California, ficient areas in various stages of suc- this small, tawny-orange butterfly is de- cession to support habitat for a wide pendent upon grasslands dominated by variety of wildlife. An area could burn fescue and oatgrass, the skipper’s two — even for miles — and there was still preferred caterpillar host plants. These plenty of habitat left for plants and grasslands have declined dramatically animals. Fast-forward to today: the re- in the past 150 years due to agricul- maining grasslands are found in frag- tural and residential development, fire ments scattered through an otherwise suppression, livestock grazing, and the intensively managed landscape. This spread of exotic species. More than 95 change is not limited to any one region percent of native prairies in western but has taken place across the country. Washington, for example, have been Only a fraction of tallgrass prairies in dramatically altered or destroyed. the East and Midwest remain, and prai- In the last couple of years, the Xer rie and savanna in the West has fared ces Society has worked with the U. S. no better. Without fire many of these Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. areas are negatively affected by both Forest Service to survey potential habi- native and non-native invasive plants, tat for the mardon skipper on Forest

10 WINGS Protecting the mardon skipper (Polites mardon) during grassland burning has been a focus of Xer ces Society research in recent years. Photograph by Tom Kogut, courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service.

Service lands in northern California. tive shape, color, and flight pattern of The state was known to be home to a mardon skipper. We soon realized only a few very small populations and that we had hit the mother lode! Over these agencies wanted to see if surveys the course of the next several hours we would find more sites. The mardon skip- counted more than a hundred butter- per has a short flight season, so all sur- flies. This may not seem like a lot but veys were squeezed into a brief two-to- most mardon population counts log three-week period when the adults were only a dozen or so individuals, so we expected to be on the wing. In 2007 we knew we had found a very special site. surveyed dozens of areas, but found no Excited about the discovery, we new populations of skippers. Surveys in contacted our agency partners to tell the second year seemed to be heading them the good news. It turned out that in the same direction until the last day we had found this population just in of field work. time. For more than a year, the Forest After a grueling hike the previous Service had been planning a controlled day with no success in finding the skip- burn at the site, a meadow system on per, my Xerces colleague Logan Lauvray serpentine soils of a quality that is rare and myself arrived at our last site on in the region. These systems are highly Coon Mountain with relative ease. fire-adapted and many of the plants and Stepping out of the 4x4 vehicle into the animals associated with them need fire morning sunshine, we looked across a to keep these habitats open; inspection meadow complex dotted with immense showed that there was considerable en- Jeffrey pines. Within a minute of walk- croachment by woody vegetation that ing into the meadow I saw the distinc- could lead to a hot-burning wildfire.

FALL 2009 11 The charred trunks are now the only clue that this area of Coon Mountain has been burned. Photograph by Scott Hoffman Black.

Without management this meadow do not take invertebrates into account would become a tinderbox. when planning controlled burns and There was ample reason to be con- there are almost never baseline surveys cerned about a prescribed fire harming of the invertebrates at a site. They un- the mardon population. The use of fire derstand that many plants are adapted as a management tool is based on the to fires and know how they will re- supposition that prairie and meadow spond. They also know that most mam- species are adapted to wildfires and thus mal and bird species can move out of can cope with regular burns, but the harm’s way, as long as the controlled survival of many invertebrates in such burn is not done during nesting season. circumstances depends upon the pres- What they are less aware of is that most ence of nearby unburned areas to offer insects — particularly the larval stages refuge to populations that will then of habitat specialists — are not as mobile recolonize the burned habitat. Many as vertebrates. There is also little con- studies on a variety of invertebrates, sideration of the life history of insects. including butterflies, bees, and snails, Many butterflies overwinter as larvae or have found that burning a small habitat pupae on site. The island marble (Eu- fragment in its entirety risks extirpat- chloe ausonides insulanus), for instance, ing some species because of limited or an extremely rare butterfly found only no recolonization from adjacent areas. on the San Juan Islands of Washington Often, though, fire practitioners state, overwinters as a pupa attached to

12 WINGS a blade of grass. If island marble habi- from this first year showed us what tat were to be burned in the winter, we expected: the number of skippers when most prescribed fires take place, in the unburned areas was an order of pupae within the fire area would likely magnitude greater than in the burned be killed. Winter fires present a similar ones. On the other hand, the fescue threat to the mardon skipper. Work by host plant has responded beautifully Loni Beyer of Washington State Univer- to the fire and we did see ovipositing sity at Vancouver has shown that these (egg-laying) butterflies in the burned butterflies likely overwinter as larvae at areas. For the time being, the shrubs the base of Idaho fescue. Burning the have been pushed back and the areas entire Coon Mountain site, then, would that were burned are more open and risk killing all of the mardon skipper have more light. larvae in the area. We intend to continue this study With these considerations in mind over the next several years to more fully we met with biologists and fire staff of document the butterflies’ response to the Six Rivers National Forest and the fire and to determine whether this man- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to discuss agement plan will ultimately benefit how to modify the burn to ensure long- the mardon skipper by providing bet- term survival of the mardon skipper at ter-quality habitat. Grasslands, viewed this site, and also how we might study in the big picture, need to be managed the impact of this fire on the skipper. to maintain the open conditions that The agency staffers were very open support the many plant and insect spe- to working with us. Indeed, because cies that live in them, and in the effort they themselves had identified the site to manage these prairies and meadows as a possible mardon location, they fire can be either an important tool that were delighted that we had found it benefits these butterflies or a threat to and wanted to do everything in their their future survival. Burn size, inten- power to manage for it. But they did sity, and frequency are all important have somewhat competing interests: elements when managing for inverte- fire was needed to control shrub en- brate species. We hope that fire man- croachment and to remove thatch that agers will seek information from those had built up and was choking out rare who research butterflies and other in- wildflowers. Together, we plotted out vertebrates; doing so will help them to which areas to burn and which to leave prepare management plans that meet untouched. We also designed a study the needs of all of the wildlife that rely to test the response of the butterfly to on these small remnant ecosystems. In the burn. In the early winter of 2008, turn we also hope that entomologists around a third of the area occupied by will respond to controlled fires with an the mardon was burned. open mind. If we all work together, bio- This past summer, following the logical diversity will benefit. winter burn, Logan and I returned to Coon Mountain to set up transects to study the mardon skipper in both Scott Black is the executive director of the the burned and unburned areas. Data Xerces Society.

FALL 2009 13 Game Birds, the Farm Bill, and Invertebrates: A Win-Win-Win Situation

Wendell Gilgert

With an abrupt whirring of wings and working lands for decades. Game birds a raucous call, a ring-necked pheasant and invertebrate conservation go hand- breaks cover, followed rapidly by the in-hand. sharp report of a shotgun. The bird For those who spend time afield, jinks in midair and continues its flight the connection between healthy pop- over the frosted crop stubble, disap- ulations of game birds and insects has pearing into tall vegetation on the far long been recognized. Our most popu- side of the field. For many if not most lar game birds — ring-necked pheasant, hunters, hunting is more about the turkey, quail, chukar, and grouse — are full experience than just the shoot- precocial, that is, they hatch covered in ing itself. To many conservationists, down and with eyes open, and within this type of scene — an introduced bird a few hours the chicks can walk, run, being pursued across an intensively and feed themselves. These game birds managed landscape — is dishearten- belong to the order Galliformes, and are ing. Yet hunting and similar rural pur- generally referred to as “gallinaceous” suits have provided the underpinning (chicken-like) birds. For the first three for wildlife conservation on America’s to six weeks of life, the diet of most

Their role as food sources for game birds has meant that invertebrates benefit from many habitat-creation projects on farmlands. Ring-necked pheasant, photographed by Lukas Maton, courtesy of iStockphoto.

14 WINGS gallinaceous birds is almost exclusively insectivorous; the exception is the woodland grouse, which is primarily vegetarian. From early spring to the middle of summer, most adult gallinaceous birds also rely heavily on insects, spiders, and other invertebrates. With the shorter days, cooler temperatures, and decreased insect availability of fall, the diet of both young and adult gallinaceous birds shifts away from ani- mal matter to seeds, berries, flowers, buds, leaves, and, in some cases, woody stems. In fact, invertebrates make up an important food source for almost all game birds in North America. At one end of the spectrum are snipe and American woodcock, which feed exclusively on invertebrates as juveniles and adults; at the other end are pigeons and Grasshoppers are a key component of the doves, which feed exclusively on plant diet of game birds such as prairie chick- matter. In between are the many ducks en and grouse. Club-horned grasshopper and geese that eat insects or other in- (Aeropedellus clavatus), photographed by vertebrates as a significant component Dan Johnson. of their diets. According to data from the North tion programs implemented under the American Breeding Bird Survey com- Farm Bill embraced measures to sustain piled by the U. S. Geological Survey, wildlife on privately owned, working populations of some once-common farm and ranch lands. Such lands cover gallinaceous game birds in America — nearly 70 percent of the surface of the northern bobwhite quail, lesser and continental United States, so any effort greater prairie chickens, greater sage that focuses on these areas has a huge grouse, sharp-tailed grouse, and ruffed potential to help wildlife. In fact, the grouse — have been in decline for more Farm Bill has been largely responsible than four decades. These changes have for stemming population declines in been attributed to habitat loss due to upland game birds, as well as waterfowl. agriculture; urban, suburban, and en- Some birds — ducks, geese, and ring- ergy development; the fragmentation of necked pheasants in particular — have remaining habitat; the widespread use experienced population increases. of pesticides; and invasive species. Historically, the biennial Farm Bill In 1985, recognizing the impor- has been concerned with issues of water, tance of game birds and their shrinking air, and soil improvement, as well as the populations, federally funded conserva- fiscal security of farmers. It now covers a

FALL 2009 15 The U. S. Farm Bill provides funding to support environmental improvements and habitat creation. Photograph of a buffer strip in Iowa by Lynn Betts, courtesy of the Natural Resources Conservation Service. much wider range of agriculture-related and management. Most recently, the issues, from school meal nutrition and Conservation Stewardship Program was farmers’ markets to crop insurance and established to assist landowners in en- biofuels. The bill also provides fund- hancing current conservation activities ing for a slew of wildlife and conser- and adopting additional ones. vation programs that support the cre- More than a billion dollars per ation of habitat on farms and ranches. year have been appropriated by Con- Some initiatives supported by the Farm gress and made available for conserva- Bill — such as the Conservation Reserve tion through the Farm Bill. The federal Program, the Environmental Quality agency responsible for delivering Farm Incentive Program, and the Wildlife Bill programs is the Natural Resources Habitat Incentive Program — specifi- Conservation Service, an agency with- cally identify fish and wildlife species in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. of conservation concern as a priority. Working from field offices in nearly Others target particular habitats: the every county in the nation, NRCS biolo- Wetland Reserve, Grasslands Reserve, gists partner with farmers and ranch- and Healthy Forest Reserve programs ers to plan and apply natural resources facilitate the purchase of easements conservation, restoration, and manage- and promote native habitat restoration ment. The cost of projects is generally

16 WINGS shared between the landowner and the a plant community of the right density, USDA, but often, in the case of fish and structure, and species diversity. Early wildlife projects, state wildlife agen- successional habitat is often managed cies and nonprofit organizations such to produce an abundance of flowering as the Xerces Society, Pheasants Forever, forbs and legumes, which support an Ducks Unlimited, or the National Wild array of insects, spiders, and other in- Turkey Federation contribute specialist vertebrates, all food sources for north- knowledge or additional financing to ern bobwhite quail. A farmer can either plan and execute a project. create grassy habitat on marginal crop- If, for example, a farmer in Iowa land or convert areas of shrubs or woods wants to improve habitat for northern back to early successional land by use of bobwhite quail, an NRCS biologist will a variety of techniques, including pre- assess the land for appropriate habitat scribed burning, brush management, and work with the farmer to prepare livestock herbivory, mowing, or the ju- a plan of action. The NRCS biologist dicious use of herbicides. will also ensure that the proposal is in Of course, the farmer’s work doesn’t compliance with all national, state, and stop there. Because early successional local laws and regulations. In the case habitat is, by definition, in the process of bobwhite quail, the desired habitat of change, once it has been established is open grassland of the kind referred the farmer must employ continuous to as “early successional” habitat, land management in order to maintain its in the process of change, typically to status. And because the duration of a shrubs and then to forest. Farm Bill pro- Farm Bill program contract is two to grams will provide cash support to the ten years (essentially the time it takes farmer to undertake the necessary work to create the habitat), the ongoing cost to create such grassland, incorporating of maintaining the habitat becomes the

The open, sunny habitats that are created through projects supported by the Farm Bill suit a wide range of invertebrates. Preda- tors like this wolf spider (family Lycosidae) in turn help to control pests in adjacent crop areas. Photograph by Bryan E. Reynolds.

FALL 2009 17 responsibility of the farmer. There is no farm and ranch lands annually, total- such thing as a walk-away conservation ing nearly sixty million acres of habi- practice, so we can’t be surprised that tat improvements. With an even larger the farmer needs a good justification overall appropriation for the 2008 Farm for the expense and effort. While in- Bill, we can expect increasing invest- sect conservation may be all the jus- ment in fish and wildlife conservation tification many Wings readers need, over the next five years. In addition, the the harsh economic climate faced by 2008 Farm Bill specifically articulates today’s farmers necessitates that they increased emphasis on the conserva- take a more hard-nosed approach. tion and restoration of both native and Game birds, and the hunting of game managed pollinators, so the benefit to birds, are either a part of their business insects from game bird management or a personal passion. will grow. That bodes well for the future Since 2004, NRCS conservationists of our wildlife resources on America’s have reported more than half a million working lands, and invertebrates — as acres of early successional habitat es- well as hunters — will benefit. tablished or restored on working lands through Farm Bill programs, a boon to both game birds and invertebrates. Over Wendell Gilgert is the west regional wild- the past five years, Farm Bill programs life biologist for the USDA Natural Re- across the nation have been applied on sources Conservation Service, in Portland, more than fourteen million acres of Oregon.

Habitats provided for sharp-tailed grouse and other game birds could offer even greater benefit for invertebrates with some minor changes in design or management. Photograph by Lawrence Sawyer, courtesy of iStockphoto.

18 WINGS Missed Opportunities on the Grassy Knoll: Saving the Northeast’s Grassland Invertebrates

Sacha Spector

Two. That’s the total number of times menting bronze coppers with startling Rick Cech and Guy Tudor spotted the regularity. In short order, they had re- small, strikingly beautiful, and metal- corded half a dozen new bronze copper lurgically named bronze copper but- locations, with dozens of individuals, terfly (Lycaena hyllus) during ten years in just one New York county. More im- of surveys for their book Butterflies of portant, they had a formula for finding the East Coast: An Observer’s Guide. Five more: to find bronze coppers, find farm years of more geographically focused ponds. All of the sites where the bronze work by the staff of the Massachusetts copper was persisting in the Hudson Butterfly Atlas Project found just nine Valley were around small farm ponds specimens statewide. Further south, in actively managed or recently aban- Connecticut’s atlas project turned up a doned pastures and hayfields. whopping six specimens during a simi- For those in the know about but- lar time frame, leading to the designa- terflies, the reappearance of the bronze tion of the species as a special concern copper in New York was a welcome but in the state. New Jersey, Massachusetts, not entirely surprising development. West Virginia, Virginia, and Delaware And it hasn’t been an isolated event for also list the bronze copper as imperiled Conrad and his crew, who, as they work or critically imperiled. to inventory the active and abandoned Yet the bronze copper is known hayfields, pastures, and farmlands of to occur in open, wet habitats (such as the Hudson Valley, continue to turn marshes and wet meadows) from Mon- up dozens of native butterfly, dragonfly, tana to New Brunswick and south to and beetle species whose grassland and Virginia and Arkansas. It is generally re- early successional habitats are increas- ported as a common species across the ingly things of the past in the north- northern and central parts of its range. eastern United States. The species is ranked as “globally se- At one time, grasslands — that is, cure” by NatureServe, the organization pastures and hayfields — were pretty that compiles and analyzes date from easy to find in the Northeast, even if all the state and provincial Natural you were a butterfly like the bronze cop- Heritage Programs in the United States per, with minimal flying skills. Begin- and Canada. ning in the late 1700s, conversion of the Conrad Vispo and his colleagues vast eastern forests — once nearly con- at the Hawthorne Valley Farm’s Farm- tinuous from the Atlantic to the Great scape Ecology Program, based in Hills- Lakes — to farmland had been almost dale, New York, found themselves docu- unimaginably swift. By roughly 1850,

FALL 2009 19 The story of the disappearance and rediscovery of the bronze copper (Lycaena hyllus) underscores the fact that the needs of the smallest animals often go unnoticed by many farmland conservation programs. Photograph by Bryan E. Reynolds. more than 80 percent of the forests had the winners were probably grassland been cleared. The modest natural grass- specialists. Indeed, it is suspected that lands owing to beaver-created bottom- many grassland-loving species colo- land meadows, hillside fens, or hilltop nized the Northeast from the Midwest and sandplain wildfires were now aug- during this period, exploiting the sud- mented by extensive if anthropogenic den explosion of grassland resources clearings. Grasslands, formerly quite that had started to look a lot like the limited, became the dominant element Great Plains. But among the winners of the landscape. From one horizon to were also many locals, who were likely the other, a patchwork of pastures and specialized for living in naturally open hayfields, punctuated here and there habitats. These were species that had by woodlots and wetlands, provided been there all along in the open habi- exponentially more grassland habitat tats (which may not have looked too dif- than had existed before. A veritable ferent from the newly created pastures all-you-can eat buffet for the species and hayfields), and whose distributions whose preferences ran more to grass in the Northeast were probably much blades than tree leaves had turned on patchier before the land was cleared. its “welcome” sign. The bronze copper may have been just In any ecological story of change such a winner, with its preference for there are winners and losers, and in wetland edges near open areas suddenly this open new world of the Northeast catered to by the farmers who cleared

20 WINGS their forests to the edges of waterholes began to shrink with the decline of the or created wet meadows where there grasslands and shrublands. Perhaps had been poorly drained bottomland one-third of the Northeast’s mammals forests. The new human-dominated prefer those open habitats. A handful, habitats may have become suitable ana- most notably the New England cotton- logs of those previously widespread but tails (now found on barely 20 percent less extensive naturally occurring ones. of their former range) and the bobcats Sadly, pendulums swing and real that prey on them, were disadvantaged estate bubbles go pop and by the early by dwindling open lands. 1900s the Northeast’s great agricultur- More than any other vertebrate al juggernaut was on the decline. Rich group, though, grassland birds really soils, fossil fuels, improved transporta- began to sing the blues in New England. tion routes, and agricultural innova- On a continental basis, no other seg- tions made the Midwest the breadbasket ment of the avifauna has experienced of the nation. Northeastern farms were such sharp declines over the past fifty sold or abandoned at a tremendous years. According to Breeding Bird Survey pace, and trees began to regrow on the data, the New England upland sandpip- landscape that had supported so many er and eastern meadowlark populations grassland species. By mid-century, for- declined by 84 and 97 percent, respec- est regrowth was a widespread phenom- tively, between 1966 and 1991. Annual enon and, by the end of the century, the decline rates of virtually all grassland process had run almost to completion. birds have been frightful: over roughly In New York, for example, pastures and the same time period in New York, the hayfields decreased by about33 percent average size of populations of grassland in area between 1965 and 2006. Today, bird species was reduced by 6.5 percent large swaths of New England and the each year. Species such as the grasshop- Mid-Atlantic states are once again blan- per sparrow, eastern meadowlark, bob- keted by forests, as they were by agricul- olink, woodcock, Henslow’s sparrow, tural grassland 125 years ago. northern shrike, and short-eared owl This cycle furnished a rousing les- have practically vanished. son of nature’s resiliency, especially for Numbers like these make federal fans of forests, who might hope that and state agencies sit up and take notice. someday other deforested regions will As Wendell Gilgert describes elsewhere return to their glorious, leafy past. But in this issue, the attention focused on this change of fortune did not favor the grassland restoration and management bronze copper, nor dozens if not hun- began to increase in the 1990s, taking dreds of other open-country species the form of a veritable alphabet soup of whose prospects were fast receding. For conservation initiatives led by the U.S. them — for the regal fritillary (Speyeria Department of Agriculture and U.S. Idalia) and the Arogos skipper (Atrytone Fish and Wildlife Service. Today, at the arogos), to pick just a pair out of the federal level, grassland conservation ef- many — the salad days were over. forts are implemented on private lands Of course, invertebrates are not through a variety of programs including the only species whose distributions the Grasslands Reserve, Conservation

FALL 2009 21 Stewardship, and Wildlife Habitat In- What was surprising about the “re- centive programs. The new emphasis on discovery” of the bronze copper wasn’t grasslands was evidenced in the 2002 its local abundance in the Hudson Farm Bill and has been expanded since Valley — rather, it was that, in a region then (with some much-needed leader- where the decline of grasslands and ship by the Xerces Society on pollina- their species was a conservation issue tor-conservation issues). Bureau of the of increasing importance, and where Interior management efforts on federal state, federal, and private funds were lands in national wildlife refuges, parks, pouring in for the preservation of grass- and monuments also expanded signifi- lands, it hadn’t been found sooner. Here cantly. State wildlife agencies soon fol- was one of the Northeast’s rarest butter- lowed the lead of the federal agencies flies, hiding in plain sight, with nobody and by the middle of this decade nearly watching it but the occasional passing fifty thousand acres of state land in New cow. Where were the federal and state England and the Mid-Atlantic region wildlife managers, the conservation were being managed to maintain habi- NGOs, the lepidopterists? Where were tats in early successional stages to help the dedicated landowners who really both game birds and song birds. Many believe in being good stewards of their of those state agencies began to offer grasslands? guidance and incentives for grassland The lesson of the bronze copper conservation efforts by private land- has to do with missed opportunities in owners as well. our conservation targets and the nar- The centerpiece of these programs row taxonomic breadth they represent. has been restoring regular disturbance The vast majority of the state, federal, to habitats, in effect repeatedly setting and private initiatives in recent years the clock back on the successional pro- establish the recovery of grassland bird cess to maintain grassy or shrubby open species as their near-exclusive focus for habitats. Mowing, burning, and grazing site selection and management regimes. are the primary tools for accomplish- Grassland managers are encouraged to ing this goal, and a tremendous amount mow or burn areas when the breeding of academic literature and an array of season for birds has concluded, usually best management practices have fol- defined by a convenient date, such as lowed. Conservation organizations July 15 or August 15, after the fledgling have stepped forward with useful, easily bobolinks and meadowlarks are on implemented guidelines for improving the wing. And, come mid-July or mid- grassland habitat that include criteria August, mow and burn they do, often for determining the best management oblivious to the life cycles of the dozens practice for any given parcel based on of other grassland-dependent species its size, condition, and landscape con- beneath their blades or in front of their text. And, as Wendell Gilgert rightly fires, which are in the midst of feeding, concludes, all this attention and fund- pupating, or egg-laying. ing have been and will continue to be Do we know enough to manage a tremendous boon for grassland biodi- grassland for invertebrates concurrently versity of all descriptions. with birds? The answer is clearly yes.

22 WINGS An awareness of the rich diversity of insects that live in grasslands is the first step toward improved management of these important habitats, and a greater return on the money invested in their restoration. Arogos skipper (Atrytone arogos) photographed by Bryan E. Reynolds.

Rigorous research on grassland inverte- “whether butterflies are a management brate conservation in the United States objective or not, butterflies present in and Europe has repeatedly shown that the habitat being managed are just as managed disturbance can be optimized affected by whatever management oc- to conserve multiple sensitive species. curs.” The same could reasonably be said Careful rotation of burning, grazing, or for species of every other invertebrate mowing on fractions of sites can be co- group. Swengel continued, “usually but- ordinated to benefit a variety of life his- terflies aren’t at the top of a wildlife or tories and host-plant associations. But habitat manager’s agenda, or even on designing such management requires the agenda at all, at least voluntarily.” an equally careful inventory of the in- It’s time, given the millions we’re invertebrate habitat at a site — a seemingly vesting in restoring grassland habitats, obvious step that gets left out of most of and the hundreds of species at stake, the “best practices” documents for bird that invertebrates finally have their day conservation. in the sun on the grassy knoll. As good as they are, our grassland recovery efforts fail to recognize how many more needy creatures we over- Sacha Spector is the director of conserva- look in the tall grass. We could readily tion science at Scenic Hudson, and the include many of these in our conserva- former chair of the Terrestrial Invertebrate tion plans, if we were only more aware. Red List Authority for the IUCN Species As Ann Swengel wrote for the North Programme. He is secretary of the board American Butterfly Association in1998 , of the Xerces Society.

FALL 2009 23 Can a Bird Save a Living Fossil?

Piotr Naskrecki

Standing on the beach of Delaware Bay to the dry land. By the time the sun had as swarms of horse flies did their best to fully set, the beach was covered with drain me of every drop of blood, I wait- hundreds of glistening animals. Fe- ed for an amazing spectacle to begin. males were digging into the sand, mak- The sun grew dim, and the high tide ing holes to deposit their eggs (nearly was nearing its peak. Every year in May four thousand in a single night), while and June, during a few nights that co- the males fought for the privilege of incide with the full and new phases of fathering the embryos. Fertilization in the moon, the Atlantic horseshoe crabs horseshoe crabs is external, and often (Limulus polyphemus) — members of the multiple males share the fatherhood of order Xiphosura and not true crabs the eggs in a clutch. Equipped with a but more closely related to spiders and pair of big, compound eyes (plus eight scorpions — leave the sandy beds of the smaller ones) and capable of seeing the ocean, and enter our world, as dry and ultraviolet range of the light spectrum, foreign to them as their wet and dark even in the melee of waves, sand, and domain would be to us. Risking their the vast array of other males, male lives, these beautiful and majestic ani- horseshoe crabs are very good at locat- mals enter a strange and unfamiliar tering females. Scientists studying this be- rain, where the lack of water suddenly havior first suspected that males might makes the gravitational force feel stron- be attracted by female pheromones, but ger. Horseshoe crabs are surprisingly as it turns out they rely solely on their graceful in water, capable of sprinting excellent vision. on the sandy bottom and occasionally The next morning I found the enjoying a short swim on their backs. beach covered with the eggs of horse- But here on the beaches of Delaware shoe crabs. Well-rested and ready to Bay, they plod slowly. Females, who are start a bright new day, the flesh-piercing larger and heavier than the males, are flies attacked me with a renewed enthu- particularly disadvantaged. They can siasm. Flailing my arms and swatting reach weights of nearly six pounds, and dozens of flies at a time, I went about by the time they get to the shore, every flipping crabs stuck on their backs in female has at least one suitor clinging to the sand, and started to look for partic- her back. In some cases she has to drag ularly big clutches of eggs. Freshly laid along not one but two or three males eggs look like small, milky-colored mar- trying to gain access to the eggs she is bles, no larger then half a grain of rice. about to lay. After lying in the sand for two weeks, In the dimming light, I could see a fully developed egg resembles a tiny spiky tails of countless more crabs as glass aquarium, with a petite horseshoe they tumbled in the waves, trying to get crab twirling inside, impatient to break

24 WINGS the walls of its miniature prison. Once for eel, conch, and whelk. Harvesting free, the larva catches a wave back into crabs for biomedical research, especially the ocean and will spend about a week for their blood, which is used to detect floating freely, before settling on the bacterial contamination in medical de- bottom of the shallow shore waters to vices (and marketed as Limulus Amoe- begin a life akin to that of its parents. bocyte Lysate, or LAL) further impacted About a hundred years earlier, I the population. All of this exploitation probably would have not been able to has lead to a dramatic decline in the walk on the beach without stepping on numbers of horseshoe crabs along the horseshoe crabs. They were so numer- East Coast of the United States. ous during their breeding season that But there were other species affect- humans simply had to find some way of ed by the waning numbers of horseshoe using this bountiful resource, and they crabs. Chock-full of fat and protein, the soon came up with one. Between 1880 eggs of the Atlantic horseshoe crab are and 1920 well over a million horseshoe an ideal fuel for scores of shorebirds. As crabs were harvested each year — killed, reliable as a Swiss clock, horseshoe crabs ground up, and used as fertilizer and could be counted on to spread a deli- hog fodder. The practice continued cious smorgasbord of fresh eggs on the until 1970, when the last processing shores of Delaware Bay, always there on plant closed, mostly because of the com- the morning following the new and full plaints about its smell, and also because moon of the late spring months. One the harvest dropped to a mere hundred bird in particular, the red knot (Calidris thousand crabs per year. But in its place canutus rufa), owes its very survival to another industry sprang up, this time horseshoe crabs. Mixed in with flocks of killing horseshoe crabs for use as bait other shorebirds, the red knot may not

Red knots migrate from the southern tip of South America to their breeding grounds in the Arctic. Success in this journey relies on the presence of horseshoe crabs during their stopover at Delaware Bay. Photograph by William Sherman, courtesy of iStockphoto.

FALL 2009 25 stand out while on the ground, but in disappear as well. Apparently, low sup- flight it exposes its richly colored breast. plies of horseshoe crab eggs prevent the One thing that does make it stand out birds from putting on enough weight to from the crowd is its migration, a nine- get to the Arctic and breed. Since 2000 thousand-mile journey from Tierra del the number of birds overwintering in Fuego to the Arctic Circle. This route South America has dropped from fifty- includes a stopover at Delaware Bay, a three thousand to fewer than fifteen desperately needed respite from an ex- thousand. hausting journey. By the time the birds In response to these declines, the reach the bay, they’ve lost about half of ornithological community in the Unit- their body weight. The two weeks they ed States sprang into action. Petitions spend feeding here are crucial for them were signed, studies were conducted, to continue to their breeding grounds. and eventually laws protecting the Ever since humans started paying atten- birds were enacted. People had finally tion to such things, Delaware Bay has made the connection that, if the crabs amazed people with clouds of red knots disappear, so would the birds, and thus descending on its shores every spring. we probably should try to save these But a few years ago, as the crab popula- seemingly lowly invertebrates. In New tion continued to dwindle to a fraction Jersey, where just a couple of years ago of its former glory, the birds started to it was acceptable to drive a pickup truck

Mobs of mating horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) throng Delaware Bay at the tide’s edge. But these numbers are tiny compared to the hordes that are known to have covered the beach a century ago. Photograph by Piotr Naskrecki.

26 WINGS Masses of horseshoe crab eggs carpet the sand for a week or two, providing a protein-rich food source for migrating red knots. Photograph by Piotr Naskrecki. to the beach and load it with hundreds quired by law in Virginia, and already of crabs for bait and other uses, it is now the harvest of horseshoe crabs has been illegal to collect a single individual. A reduced by half. U.S. Fish and Wildlife ranger threatened There are signs that these actions me with a $10,000 fine for picking up a are very effective. The population of horseshoe crab on a beach in New Jer- horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay has sey, though my intention was to release stopped declining, as evidenced by the it immediately after taking a few photo- numbers collected each year in horse- graphs. He gave me a stern warning but shoe crab surveys conducted by enthu- graciously let me go. A similar ban on siastic volunteers on the beaches of New horseshoe harvesting had been enacted Jersey and Delaware. It is an open ques- in Delaware but was later overturned. A tion whether this is enough to reverse more lasting conservation measure was the decline of red knots. the creation in the Delaware Bay of the It amazes me that it took a bird for Carl N. Schuster, Jr., Horseshoe Crab Re- people to really start paying attention serve (named after one of the world’s to the horseshoe crabs’ decline. In what foremost horseshoe crab researchers), I can only describe as a phylogenocide an area encompassing about fifteen — extermination of an entire lineage — hundred square miles, where horseshoe horseshoe crabs have been systemati- crabs are permanently protected from cally exploited for more than a century. harvesting. Additional help came from This may sound overly harsh, but just the nonprofit Ecological Research and think about it — the loss of red knots, as Development Group, which designed unforgivable as it would be, means the a simple mesh bag that allows conch loss of only one-ten-thousandth of the and whelk fishermen to reuse horseshoe genetic pool for birds (or even less, as crab bait. The use of the bag is now re- the visitors to Delaware Bay are merely a

FALL 2009 27 subspecies of Calidris canutus, a globally looking up for the Atlantic horseshoe widespread bird.) The loss of one species crabs, and red knots may be the ones of horseshoe crabs would spell the loss to thank for it. of a quarter of all genetic heritage of the order Xiphosura, one of the oldest living lineages on the planet. And yet we Dr. Piotr Naskrecki is a research associate care more about a migratory bird that at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at contributes little to our wellbeing than Harvard University, where he works on the we do about a strange, alien-looking evolution and systematics of orthopteroid beast that has already saved millions of insects. He is also involved in a number human lives thanks to its use in detect- of invertebrate conservation projects, in- ing bacterial contamination of surgical cluding the IUCN Red List assessment of instruments and medicines. How shal- African katydids and the development of low we are. Internet-based resources for invertebrate The extinction of horseshoe crabs is biologists and conservation practitioners. almost complete in Japan, where a local As a writer and photographer he strives to species (Tachypleus tridentatus) used to promote the beauty, value, and conserva- be almost as numerous as its Atlantic tion of invertebrate animals. cousin. I went there in the summer of 2008 to see the last place in Japan where T. tridentatus is still supposed to appear in large numbers. I arrived at Imari Beach on the island of Kyushu on the day before the Kabutogani festival, an annual celebration of horseshoe crabs. I was told that it was a good year — four pairs (!) of horseshoe crabs having been spotted near the beach. Four pairs. Eight individuals. That was it. In the 1980s, seeing five hundred individuals at the very same spot was not unusual. Horse- shoe crabs in Japan are almost revered, and the Japanese Association for the Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs has been actively fighting for the species’ survival. And yet the animals continue to decline. There is a sad lesson here, from which I hope we can learn. When talking about a species’ fate, there is such a thing as the point of no return. The sighting of just four pairs of horse- Every time I drive back from Dela- shoe crabs generated excitement at the ware Bay to Boston, I cannot help but annual festival in Kyushu, Japan. Tachy- wonder what I will find on the bay’s pleus tridentatus, photographed by Piotr beaches next year. Things seem to be Naskrecki.

28 WINGS XERCES NEWS

Xerces Society Opens New Offices in the Midwest and California As 2009 comes to a close, the Xerces the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund, Society continues to expand our core the Maki Foundation, the New Land capacity. In just five years we have dou- Foundation, the Oregon Watershed En- bled our staff size and expanded our hancement Board, the Oregon Zoo, the geographic reach so that we are now Organic Farming Research Foundation, engaged in every region of the United Organic Valley Family of Farms, Panta States, with staff based in St. Louis, Mis- Rhea, the Turner Foundation, the U.S. souri; Princeton, Minnesota; and Sac- Bureau of Land Management, the Natu- ramento and Monterey, California. We ral Resources Conservation Service of have also partnered with the Univer- the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the sity of Wisconsin’s Center for Integrated U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Agriculture in Madison, Wisconsin, to the U.S. Forest Service, and the Wild- employ a pollinator outreach coordi- wood Foundation. nator to work throughout that state on We are now working across the research and education projects. United States to educate growers, These regional offices allow us to agency staff, and other agricultural do more work, more efficiently. Our support professionals about ways to expansion has been made possible by create habitat for beneficial insects on support from our members and grants farms. We continue to advocate for the from private foundations and govern- protection of bumble bees, freshwater ment agencies. In particular, we are mussels, butterflies, and other threat- grateful to the Bullitt Foundation, the ened invertebrates throughout North CERES/Greater Milwaukie Foundation, America. Thank you for the support the Columbia Foundation, the CS Fund, that makes this possible.

Xerces Receives Grants for Habitat Protection The Xerces Society is at the forefront that flow from taking care of habitat. of pollinator conservation, providing The first grant is a federal award advice and information to growers, that allows continuation of a project training agency staff, and undertaking begun in 2006. In partnership with research into the effectiveness of habi- the University of California at Berke- tat creation. Three recent Conservation ley, Audubon California’s Landowner Innovation Grants, awarded by the Nat- Stewardship Program, and the Center ural Resources Conservation Service, for Land-Based Learning, the Society have enabled us to build our capacity to implemented habitat restoration proj- help both growers and agencies and to ects and UC Berkeley worked to un- more clearly demonstrate the benefits derstand how these areas provide for

FALL 2009 29 native bees and ultimately pollination Valley to promote pollinator conser- of adjacent crops. Using knowledge vation. Through the “Pollinator Con- gained from these studies, Xerces staff servation in the San Joaquin Valley” presented dozens of workshops across project, we will work with local farm- the state and developed a variety of ers and resource conservation districts publications that provide the techni- to develop and pilot-test guidelines for cal information needed to create pol- creating pollinator habitat tailored to linator habitat. Capitalizing on these the needs of local crops. successes, an effort called “Promoting Our third successful grant proposal Agricultural Sustainability through will see our agricultural pollinator pro- Conserving Beneficial Insects” allows gram working nationwide. To imple- UC Berkeley and the Xerces Society to ment “Native Pollinator Habitat in Di- demonstrate the effectiveness of hedge- verse Agricultural Landscapes” we will rows as refuges for natural enemies of work in California, Oregon, the Upper crop pests. We will use this informa- Midwest, New England, Pennsylvania, tion to develop guidelines for beneficial and Florida. For this project we will de- insect habitat and engage growers and velop pollinator conservation project NRCS staff through workshops across plans specifically designed for these California and the United States. six different areas. We will work with The second grant was received from regional partners to conduct trials of the California state office of theNRCS to native and pollinator-friendly plant work in three areas of the San Joaquin mixes in each area, document the re-

Three recently awarded grants allow Xerces to expand our pollinator conservation work, including creating habitat guidelines for six different regions in North America, in con- cert with a variety of private and public partners. Photograph by Mace Vaughan.

30 WINGS sults of these trials, and create and dis- Critical to this project’s success is seminate detailed guidelines based on the NRCS’s Plant Materials Program. The this work. program’s specialists and its twenty- Partners include the California seven plant material centers play a vital Association of Conservation Districts, role in helping the NRCS complete its Oregon State University’s Integrated mission of natural resource conserva- Plant Protection Center, the University tion. Six of these centers will participate of Wisconsin’s Department of Entomol- in the planting of pollinator habitat as ogy and its Center for Integrated Ag- part of this project. ricultural Systems, Pennsylvania State The Society’s pollinator program University, the Cape Cod Cranberry staff, based in Portland, Sacramento, Growers Association, the Plymouth Soil and St. Louis, will work to coordinate and Water Conservation District, and these efforts to ensure that the project Straughn Farms of Waldo, Florida. will be successful.

Xerces Society Basic Membership Rate Is Changing After careful consideration, the Xerces will be $30 (or $40 for gift memberships Society is increasing its basic member- with the Pollinator Conservation Hand- ship rate. This was not an easy decision, book), up $5. This rate increase will be but the costs of running a successful effective May 1, 2010. (Renew early to nonprofit and producing Wings have beat the change!) Other membership risen significantly, and membership levels remain the same, including the rates have not changed for well over a $15 “Living Lightly” rate for students decade. Regular and gift memberships and those on limited incomes.

WINGS, Fall 2009 Volume 32, Number 2 Wings is published twice a year by the Xerces Society, an international, nonprofit ro ganization dedicated to protecting the diversity of life through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat. A Xerces Society membership costs $25 per year (tax-de ductible) and includes a subscription to Wings. Copyright © 2009 by the Xerces Society. All rights reserved. Xerces Exec utive Director: Scott Hoffman Black; Editors: Scott Hoffman Black, Adair Law, and Matthew Shepherd; Design and Production: John Laursen. Printed on recycled paper. For information about membership and our conservation programs for native pollinators, endangered species, and aquatic invertebrates, contact us: THE XERCES SOCIETY FOR INVERTEBRATE CONSERVATION 4828 Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland, OR 97215 telephone 503-232-6639 fax 503-233-6794 [email protected] www.xerces.org

FALL 2009 31 Insects benefit from the protection of habitat whether the purpose is to promote ecotourism or to provide a buffer for fil- tering pollution entering a stream. Unfortunately, since conservation projects are seldom planned with invertebrates in mind, that benefit is rarely maximized. Photograph of a rain- speckled dragonfly Gynacantha( tibiata) by Piotr Naskrecki.

THE XERCES SOCIETY FOR INVERTEBRATE CONSERVATION 4828 Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland, OR 97215

Board of Directors Counselors Dennis Paulson May R. Berenbaum Paul R. Ehrlich Robert Michael Pyle President Claire Kremen Charles L. Remington Linda Craig John Losey Michael Samways Treasurer Thomas Lovejoy Cheryl Schultz Sacha Spector Jerrold Meinwald Scientific Advisors Secretary Michael G. Morris Thomas Eisner David Johnson Piotr Naskrecki E. O. Wilson Scott E. Miller Paul A. Opler Marla Spivak

A $25 per year Xerces Society membership includes a subscription to Wings.

Our cover photograph shows how, on late-spring nights with a full moon and a high tide, horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) cluster on the beaches of Delaware Bay. Males vie for their chance to mate with the larger female. Photograph by Piotr Naskrecki.