Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands

Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands Number 10 2004 Contents Contributions welcome . inside front cover Grasslands project action Ecology and interactions in grassland habitats . 1 Focus sites. 1 Grande grasslands gathering: Dunvegan July 2003 . 2 Grassland project key site 2004: Aweme, Manitoba . 5 Grassland tiger beetles in Canada . 6 The northern scorpion, Paruroctonus boreus, in southern Alberta . 14 Leafhoppers and their relatives from the Canadian Great Plains . 17 Web watch: Build a prairie in the comfort of your own home . 25 Butterfl y inventory of the South Peace River, BC . 26 Update your research projects . 27 Mailing list for the Grasslands Newsletter . 28 Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands supports the grasslands project of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods) by providing information relevant to the study of grassland arthropods in Canada. The Ghost Tiger Beetle, Cicindela lepida Dejean (shown here) may be threatened with local extinction if dune areas shrink. Read about this and other grassland tiger beetles on page 6. 1 Contributions welcome Please consider submitting items to Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands Grassland site Current research – descriptions project reports Short news items Feature articles Grassland species Selected accounts publications Contributions such as these, as well as other items of interest to students of grasslands and their arthropods, are welcomed by the editor. This publication (formerly Newsletter, Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands) appears annually in March; final copy deadline for the next issue is January 31, 2005. Editor: H.V. Danks Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods) Canadian Museum of Nature P.O. Box 3443, Station “D” Ottawa, ON K1P 6P4 613-566-4787 (tel.) 613-364-4022 (fax) [email protected] Articles without other accreditation are prepared by the Editor. The website of the Biological Survey is at http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/bschome.htm Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands Number 10, 2004 1 Grasslands project action Ecology and Interactions in Dytiscids in prairie ponds – Grasslands Habitats M. Alperyn Chapters for Ecology and Interactions in Grassland insects as food for birds – Grassland Habitats, the first publication to stem D. L. Johnson from the current phase of the Survey’s Arthropods Temporal changes in grasshoppers – of Canadian Grasslands project, are in progress. D. L. Johnson Confirmed chapters are listed below with authors Ecology and interactions: Summary and and tentative titles. (The order of chapters is not fi- synthesis – nalized.) T. A. Wheeler, H. V. Danks, R. E. Roughley Introduction to the Grasslands Project – For further information on this volume please T. A. Wheeler and H. V. Danks contact Terry A. Wheeler (McGill University) Attributes of Canada’s grasslands – ([email protected], 514-398-7937). J. D. Shorthouse Plans for the second volume – Arthropods Weather in grasslands – and Altered Grassland Ecosystems – are under- S. McGinn way. The tentative publication date is 2006. For Mite fauna in grassland soils – more information on the second volume please V. M. Behan-Pelletier contact Kevin Floate (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) [email protected]. Diversity of spiders in tallgrass prairies – D. Wade Aquatic Hemiptera in grasslands – Focus sites R. E. Roughley and G.G.E. Scudder The annual group field trip in 2003 was held Trophic guilds of Brachycera (Diptera) in xeric in the Peace River grasslands. See p. 2 for Felix Yukon grasslands – Sperling’s and Margot Hervieux’s report of this S. Boucher and T. A. Wheeler gathering. Gall-forming arthropods and their distributions The 2004 project key site will be at Aweme, in overlap and hybrid zones of cottonwoods Manitoba. Details can be found on p. 5. on the Canadian prairie – K. D. Floate The component community of arthropods as- sociated with cynipid galls on wild roses – J. D. Shorthouse Use of fire as a conservation and management tool in tallgrass prairie – R. E. Roughley et al. Arthropods in identifying hotspots for conservation – G. G. E. Scudder Leafhoppers as indicators of grassland habitat Sandra Kinsey, Laird Law, Margot Hervieux, Cris Guppy types – at the 2003 field trip. (photo by G. Pohl) K. G. A. Hamilton Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands Number 10, 2004 2 3 Grande Grasslands Gathering: Dunvegan, July 2003 Felix Sperling Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9; [email protected] Margot Hervieux Alberta Parks and Protected Areas, Grande Prairie District #1905, 10320 – 99 Street, Grande Prairie, AB T8V 6J4; [email protected] A great group of grassland gurus (and ento- stream to as far north as Ft. Vermillion, also sup- mologists) gravitated to the Grande Prairie during ported grassland vegetation. According to recent July 18-21 last year. Participants from Denmark, research by the Alberta Conservation Association the USA, and across Canada met at Dunvegan (ACA), however, less than half of one percent of Provincial Park in northwestern Alberta to explore the upland prairie has survived human settlement. remnant native grasslands in the Peace Region. Large stretches of the river slopes are still intact Co-organized by local naturalist Margot Hervieux although often heavily grazed. and Survey member Felix Sperling, the trip was Over the past three years, the ACA (a provin- timed to take in the late summer peak of endemic cial conservation organization funded by revenue butterflies, as well as to draw in Lepidopterists from hunting and fishing licenses) has conducted winging their way to the Lepidopterists’ Society a detailed inventory of remnant upland prairie in Annual Meeting and the COSEWIC Lepidoptera the Peace region and initiated a landowner stew- Species Specialist Group meeting held in central ardship and education program. The survey found Alberta the following week. that most of the remaining grassland parcels are in At the turn of the 20th century, between private hands. The largest area of protected upland 435,000 and 1.1 million hectares of upland grass- prairie lies within Kleskun Hill Natural Area (just land covered the area around Grande Prairie, northeast of Grande Prairie). Some native grass- Spirit River and Fairview/Peace River. Most of the land is also contained in the newly established south-facing slopes of the Peace, from B.C down- Dunvegan and Peace River Wildland Provincial Parks and Green Valley Provincial Park but most of the river slope areas remain within crown graz- ing leases. It is hoped that the additional biodiver- sity information collected during this survey (and by others in the future) will help strengthen sup- port for additional protection of native grassland sites within the Peace region, including the up- grading of significant locations like Kleskun Hill. The prairie areas of the Peace Region are thought to be remnants of the grasslands that covered much of central and northern Canada prior to the last ice age. These grasslands were pushed south by the ice and then expanded back into the Felix Sperling on a Kleskun Hill badlands slope, with Peace during the hot, dry Hypsithermal period Artemisia dracunculus (Wild Tarragon) plants in the exposed areas. (photo by T. Simonsen) 6000-9000 years ago. Over 400 km of boreal for- Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands Number 10, 2004 2 3 est now separate the remaining grasslands from the prairie to the south. Previous work on butterflies in the area has identified at least eight prairie species with disjunct populations in the Peace region and there are also two known disjunct tiger beetles. Virtually nothing is known, however, about the distribution of other arthro- pod species. Participants on this trip collected moths (macro and micro), flies, diving beetles and earthworms and soil mites. The primary goal of the July 2003 field trip was to sample for arthropods in these remnant native grassland sites. Most of the collecting was focused at three sites – two river- Jean-François Landry sweeping for microlepidoptera at slope (Dunvegan Provincial Park and Highland Highland Park, with Peace River canyon in the background. (photo by G. Pohl) Park Natural Area) and one upland (Kleskun Hill Natural Area). All three sites were explored extensions to northern Alberta. In particular one during the day and lights were set up after dark at species of Epermeniidae found at the Kleskun Dunvegan and Kleskun. Highlights of the survey Hill site, Ochromolopis ramapoella Kearfott, was included: finding excellent bugs and friendly en- previously recorded only from the southern half tomologists (and vice versa), a ferocious thunder- of Alberta. Other records of interest are no doubt storm, and much-appreciated showers and spa- contained in the material collected. Dissections ghetti at the Hervieux family home in Grande will be necessary to identify species in several Prairie near the end of the trip. groups, particularly the Gelechioidea for Landry and the poorly known tortricid tribe Cochylini for Lepidopterists were well represented among Pohl. Peace participants. Jean-François Landry, from the Canadian National Collection in Ottawa, found Reed Watkins, retired engineer and peripatet- that Dunvegan and area prairie sites produced ic plume moth taxonomist from New Jersey, was excellent collecting as far as Microlepidoptera pleased to find five different Peace prairie ptero- were concerned. Three days collecting by Landry phorids at Dunvegan. The two most common at and Sperling at 10 different sites yielded a to- that time have a wide distribution, but among ex- tal of 328 micros, both at mercury-lights at night perts there remains uncertainty as to the correct and sweeping during the day. All specimens were names due to geographic variation and the fact that field pinned and spread, representing an initial the few North American workers have general- count of 85 species, primarily in the Gelechioidea, ly not examined the types in the British Museum. Tineoidea, Yponomeutoidea and Tortricoidea. For One very interesting specimen, of another species micros, this is a very good catch, especially con- entirely unknown to Reed, requires further detailed sidering that we got a day of rainy weather and study.

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