Essays on Invertebrate Conservation
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WINGS ESSAYS ON INVERTEBRATE CONSERVATION THE XERCES SOCIETY SPRING 2016 CONTENTS The Xerces Society began as a butterfly conservation group, and, although the orga nization’s work has expanded greatly, Lepidoptera remain at the heart of our efforts. The Xerces Society’s Roots in Butterfly Conservation Scott Hoffman Black Page 3. North American Butterflies: Are Once-Common Species in Trouble? Scott Hoffman Black Attention is often focused on the disappearance of rare butterflies, but many of North America’s widespread and common species are also declining. Page 5. Gardening with Butterflies Matthew Shepherd Anyone can create a place that butterflies will want to visit. The strategies the au thor suggests are adaptable for a broad range of locations. Page 10. Conserving the Crystal Skipper, North Carolina’s Newest Butterfly Allison Leidner Discovered in the late 1970s, the crystal skipper was already facing threats to its coastal habitat by the time it was officially described and named last year.Page 16. Conservation Spotlight Over the last half century, Butterfly Conservation has become the most respected and influential voice protecting butterflies and moths in Britain.Page 22. Invertebrate Notes A roundup of new books and recent research. Page 24. Staff Profile Meet Sarina Jepsen, director of our endangered species and aquatics programs. Page 26. Xerces News Updates on Xerces Society projects and successes. Page 27. 2 WINGS The Xerces Society’s Roots In Butterfly Conservation Scott Hoffman Black Butterfly conservation has always been portant animals for granted, and many at the core of what we do at the Xerces people work for their benefit. Society. Robert Michael Pyle, the Soci A major focus of our endeavors is ety’s founder, envisioned an organiza the conservation of the rarest species tion that would bring butterfly conser and the ones that we know are in de vation into the mainstream, and after cline. We hope never to see another fortyfive years we have made tremen butterfly go extinct as did our name dous strides. Agencies and conservation sake, the Xer ces blue (Glaucopsyche xer- organizations no longer take these im ces). Such species as the Karner blue (Ly- caeides samuelis), Taylor’s checkerspot (Euphydryas editha taylori), and even the broadly distributed monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) receive our attention because they need robust conservation efforts to ensure that their populations are protected and restored. Our approach varies depending on the needs of any particular species and the threats to its survival, and over the last few years that approach has had some considerable successes: ◆ More than two thousand acres of prairie habitat was restored for the Kar ner blue butterfly in Wisconsin, thanks to collaboration with academic part ners, farmers, and agency staff. ◆ More than six hundred acres of es sential mountain meadow habitat is being managed for the mardon skip The Xerces Society began with a focus on per (Polites mardon). Xerces scientists butterflies and continues to work for their completed surveys, developed monitor protection, irrespective of size. With a ing protocols, undertook research into half-inch wingspan, the western pygmy- blue (Brephidium exilis) is the smallest the ways that fire impacts these but butterfly in North America. Photograph terflies, and ultimately developed the by Bryan E. Reynolds. management plans that are now being SPRING 2016 3 implemented by the U.S. Forest Service Smithsonian Institution and which was and the Bureau of Land Management. published by Sierra Club Books in 1990. This book helped push butterfly garden ◆ We have restored and protected tens ing to a different level and promoted of thousands of acres for the monarch gardening as a means of conservation. butterfly. With the precipitous decline I am delighted to announce that in its populations, we have ramped up we have a new book: Gardening for But- our efforts to protect, manage, and re terflies: How You can Attract and Protect store monarch habitat in all landscapes Beautiful, Beneficial Insects, published from farmland to wildlife refuges, and in March by Timber Press. Gardening for now have staff working on monarch Butterflies was written in equal measure conservation across the United States. for butterfly lovers and gardeners, and ◆ Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly was provides all you need to know to create listed as “endangered” after a decade a safe harbor for butterflies in a sea of of advocacy, and now, surviving on the artificial landscapes and paved surfaces. last of its prairie habitat, it is getting the The book introduces readers to but conservation attention it deserves. terfly conservation and provides sugges tions for native plants to attract butter ◆ Working to protect not just butter flies, garden designs to help them thrive, flies but all Lepidoptera, we recently pro and best practices to accommodate all of vided feedback on the conservation of their life stages. In addition, we include the federally endangered Kern primrose a chapter on ways that gardeners can sphinx moth (Euproserpinus euterpe). provide for moths and enjoy their night Although many of the species time antics. The book also provides in we work on have very specific habitat formation on how all of these practices needs— wet mountain meadows, for can be adapted for a wide range of larger instance, or intact prairies—all butter landscapes. Wherever you live, Garden- flies need four things: 1) nectar sources ing for Butterflies will enable you to create to fuel adult flight and mating; 2) host great places for these beautiful animals. plants on which they can lay eggs and At Xerces we believe that address on which their caterpillars can feed ing the challenges faced by butterflies and grow; 3) places to pupate and over and other invertebrates requires broad winter; and 4) a refuge from insecti grassroots participation. Over the past cides. One neat thing about working to four and a half decades the Society has conserve butterflies is that we can all grown from a small group to become an help butterflies by planting and manag international conservation organiza ing habitat where we live: anyone, from tion. Our constituency has expanded in urbanite to farmer, can be engaged. parallel, and now includes people from Xerces has actively supported gar all walks of life. By joining us in taking dening that nurtures butterflies and action to help butterflies and sharing other insects since the release of our your passion for this important effort, first book,Butterfly Gardening: Creating you can help exponentially increase the Summer Magic in Your Garden, which amount of habitat so that all butterflies we produced in partnership with the will not just survive, but thrive. 4 WINGS North American Butterflies: Are Once-Common Species in Trouble? Scott Hoffman Black I grew up during the heyday of the your car will be practically spotless American muscle car and have teenage when you get to the other side. memories of rocketing down Nebraska The situation was even more no country roads in my 1971 Ford Mustang ticeable when I stepped out of the car. In Mach 1. Back then even a short drive many areas, there were shockingly few resulted in hundreds of dead bugs splat insects. Where I might once have seen tered across the grille, so I was always thousands of monarchs in the fields, washing my car to keep it clean and yards, and roadsides, I now saw perhaps shiny. When I returned to the Midwest a dozen. Butterflies are disappearing, last year with my wife and two kids— along with countless other creatures. now driving a much more sensible and With more than eighteen thousand fuelefficient rental car— I was struck species of butterflies and ten times as by the paucity of bugs. These days you many species of moths gracing our plan can drive the entire four hundred miles et, we know relatively little about the across the broad state of Nebraska and status of each one, but the information The regal fritillary (Speyeria idalia) was at one time found in thirty-two U.S. states, and now appears to be secure in only one. Photograph by Bryan E. Reynolds. SPRING 2016 5 we do have is not encouraging. Recent tion. Such butterflies are often called reports from practically every continent “rare endemics”—that is, species that are document unprecedented declines in a found only in particular places, either broad array of butterflies. in a limited geographic area or occupy Studies in Europe reveal that on av ing a very specific type of habitat. For erage the continent’s grassland butter a population living within such tight fly species have had population losses of constraints, the advent of a housing de almost 50 percent since the early 1990s. velopment in or adjacent to its habitat, Similarly, threequarters of Britain’s but or the invasion of that habitat by weedy terfly species are in decline. The situa plants, can lead to decline and endan tion is just as disturbing in the United germent. Indeed, most of the butterflies States, where at least five butterflies have listed by NatureServe as being at risk of gone extinct since 1950, another twen extinction are rare endemics. tyfive are presently listed as endangered It is, however, becoming apparent nationwide, and four more are listed as that many of the common species are threatened. NatureServe, one of the disappearing as well, though such de leading sources of information about clines were hard to notice at first. These rare and endangered species, assessed all common species were historically the of the roughly eight hundred butterfly most populous, butterflies that you species in the United States and found would find in your yard or notice along that 17 percent are at risk of extinction.