[Leps-l] Fw: NYTimes article on the NABA butterfly park

[John Shuey]

Speaking of propaganda, Grand river fen has been under a burn regime for almost three decades now.  The collapse of Poweshiek was recent, sudden, and across multiple states in the last few years.  Not a gradual decline due to 30 years of prescribed fire at a single site.  Most people familiar with the sudden decline attribute it to an external factor, like near surface water contaminations by noenicitinoids... or airborne drift . If you will, the final nail in the coffin after centuries of habitat conversion to ag, uncontrolled succession, drainage of wetlands, and so on...

John Shuey



From: Leps-l <leps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Roger Kuhlman
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2022 4:04 PM
To: Leps List <leps-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [Leps-l] Fw: NYTimes article on the NABA butterfly park


________________________________
From: Roger Kuhlman <rkuhlman at hotmail.com<mailto:rkuhlman at hotmail.com>>
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2022 4:03 PM
To: Dana, Robert (DNR) <robert.dana at state.mn.us<mailto:robert.dana at state.mn.us>>
Subject: Re: [Leps-l] NYTimes article on the NABA butterfly park

Speaking of the loss of Poweshiek Skipper (Oarisma poweshiek) in the recent past we have lost two prominent sites for the species one in NW Washtenaw County and one in Lenawee county. In addition a major population site at Grand River Fen in Jackson County may have been crippled or destroyed. In all cases controlled burns may have played a major part in the extinctions. Controlled burns can be very dangerous to endemic species like Poweshieks when their natural habitats are badly fragmented, far apart and the population numbers low. All these situations had applied to SE Michigan Poweshieks.


Roger Kuhlman
Ann Arbor, Michigan

________________________________
From: Leps-l <leps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:leps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> on behalf of Dana, Robert (DNR) <robert.dana at state.mn.us<mailto:robert.dana at state.mn.us>>
Sent: Wednesday, February 9, 2022 4:53 PM
To: Leps-L <leps-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:leps-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Leps-l] NYTimes article on the NABA butterfly park


On a different topic, I tuned in to a Zoom presentation yesterday about insect conservation from the McGuire Center at the Univ. of Florida, one of the "Expanding Horizons in Lepidoptera Research" that it produces. The presenter was Erica Henry, now a post-doc at Washington State Univ. in Pullman. She presented three stories of work she has been involved in aimed at averting extirpation/extinction of butterfly taxa--Strymon acis bartrami, Neomympha mitchellii francisci, and Speyeria zerene hippolyta. All three are habitat specialists whose habitats we have nearly eliminated, with the remnant fragments widely scattered. A crucial aspect of the decline in these butterfly populations, besides the direct destruction of habitat, is the elimination of landscape-scale dynamics that produced and maintained these habitats. This is exactly the situation here facing the Dakota skipper (Hesperia dacotae) and Poweshiek skipperling (Oarisma poweshiek), both requiring native prairie habitat. At a general level, frequent fire, episodic grazing, and climate interacted to create this biome, and the extreme fragmentation of what remains eliminates the first two as natural processes. Maintaining the remnants as anything like the native prairie requires active management to apply fire and grazing, but just what the prescription needs to be for these two butterflies to persist in remnants remains largely undetermined. Fortunately in the case of Dr. Henry's three species, the most important factor for them is the presence of their hostplants, and enough is known about the requirements of the plants to guide management strategies. Our two skippers do not appear to depend on specific hosts within the Poaceae, making the task more challenging. Anyone interested in doing some research?



Robert Dana


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/leps-l/attachments/20220210/85e9c527/attachment.html>