Ecology and Technology
News
1) Borrowed Time for butterflies?
2) Director Ed Fussell's Article for the Citizen
Borrowed time for
butterflies?
Destruction of
habitat and preferred plants puts many species on the edge of
extinction
Deep in the Florida Everglades, hordes of mosquitoes
attack humans who venture into the vast sawgrass marshes and swamps.
But
protecting every inch of skin from the pesky invaders, scientist Marc Minno
regularly braves the bugs. He searches for more docile but much more elusive
flying creatures --
After years
of study, Minno and others have reached some startling conclusions.
At least
three species appear extinct. Another two dozen may be on the brink of
disappearing forever. The biggest culprit may not be any of the things that
commonly get the blame.
And, some
experts fear the rest of
"I'm
shocked by what I'm not finding in the Keys," Minno said recently. "I think the
Keys have lost 10 percent of their butterfly species."
"When you
look at it, there have been only a handful of butterfly extinctions in the whole
country but it's highly likely there have been three extinctions in the Keys,"
he said. "Many others are just hanging on by a shoestring."
For
example, the dramatic Bahamian swallowtail, with bright yellow stripes set
against dark, chocolate brown, used to be common on an island in the Keys, Minno
said, but nobody has seen one in years.
At the
request of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Minno is surveying
He also
worries about the endangered Schaus' swallowtail. During a recent search of
Only half
the state's butterfly species are sufficiently common that they're not
threatened, said Gary Knight, director of Florida Natural Areas Inventory.
The most
endangered butterflies are those that live in grasslands, Minno said, such as
the arogos skipper and Southern dusted skipper.
"They're
almost gone from their entire range in the southeast," Minno said. "There's very
little high quality habitat left."
In South
Florida, the butterfly population has pretty much declined at the rate
development has increased, said Mark Salvato, a Wildlife Service biologist in
Vero Beach.
Butterflies
survive against hurricanes, wildfires and droughts by holding their own in small
protected colonies in great habitat, then fanning out to re-colonize new areas
after disaster strikes. If the little colonies or the favorite plants get
destroyed, Minno said, "we've lost these reservoirs to make it through these
really critical times."
The species
most at risk are those that depend on just one plant to lay their eggs. If the
plant becomes hard to find, so will the butterfly. Salvato said the butterflies
doing the best are those that use a large variety of plants.
One
butterfly he studies depends on a single rare species of croton, a weedy plant
found only in
On top of
the tremendous destruction of areas where they once thrived, butterflies face
other problems. For years, people have blamed the dwindling numbers of
butterflies on mosquito spraying. But even in places like the
He suspects
the butterflies are being attacked by invasive, nonnative fire ants, which prey
on butterfly larvae. The ants first were spotted in the Keys in 1976, he said.
If the ants really are the problem, the butterflies are in trouble.
Minno is
working to put the evidence together to decide if his theory is correct. But it
makes a lot of sense to Knight and other experts.
If it's
really the ants, Minno said, "it's a real disaster," Minno said. No one has been
able to stop them.
Does it
matter if the butterflies vanish? Probably not to most people, Minno said. He
doesn't expect they'll yield a cure for cancer or a new medicine.
But the
butterflies are part of the biological treasure that makes
"These
things deserve a chance if we can save them," Minno said. That's why federal and
state officials, as well as the Natural Areas Inventory want to figure out where
the most imperiled butterflies remain and how they can be protected.
The experts
are particularly concerned about species found only in
Over the
past decade, butterfly watching has become nearly as popular as bird watching.
As people become better at butterfly identification, it's helping the experts
keep track, Salvato said, "especially with a lot of these imperiled species."
The
inventory has drafted some of those expert butterfly watchers to help with its
efforts. They're combining field study with records from museums and other
researchers to create a statewide database and identifying places where the rare
butterflies might be found.
Donating
their time and expertise, Knight said the group tracks about half the state's
butterfly species. Halfway into the two-year project, the volunteers have 80
field surveys planned this year.
More than
two dozen
These
butterflies from
Meske's
skipper -- Keys population, lived in pine
Twin-spot
skipper -- Keys population, lived in pine
Zestos
skipper, lived in tropical hammocks
This
butterfly no longer found in
Nickerbean
blue, lived in pine
Butterflies barely hanging on. . .
Central and
Sandhills
and/or savannas and grassy flatwoods:
Arogos
skipper
Frosted
elfin
Mottled
duskywing
Southern
dusted skipper
Wild indigo
duskywing
Hammocks:
Golden
banded-skipper
Pine
rocklands:
Bartram's
hairstreak
Sawgrass
skipper -- Keys population
Open weedy
areas:
Tropical
buckeye
Zarucco
duskywing -- Keys population
Tropical
hammocks
Amethyst
hairstreak
Bahamian
swallowtail
Cuban
crescent
Dina yellow
Dingy
purplewing
Martial's
scrub-hairstreak
Schaus'
swallowtail
Local Scene
· So far
this spring, it has been a good year for butterflies in the north part of
· During
droughts, expert Marc Minno said butterflies either kind of hunker down and wait
for the rains or they don't make it.
· The peak
time to see butterflies in
· The best
year recently for butterflies was 2006. It was an incredible year for
butterflies, Minno said. "The rain must have allowed plants to grow and
conditions to be right."
Q&A:
Butterfly Facts
How many butterfly species are found
in
How long do butterflies live?
Most live about seven to 10 days, though many
Ever seen butterflies "resting" in a
mud puddle? They're sipping minerals from the mud.
What is the largest butterfly in the
world? The Queen Alexandra's Birdwing in
SOURCE:
NEWS (CONT.)
Director Edsel Fussell's Article in the Citizen
In the June 22, 2008 issue of The
Citizen guest columnists Dennis Olle and Jeffery Glassberg
responded to my column previously published on June 13,
2008 with totally irresponsible and inflammatory claims regarding the pesticides
used for mosquito control and the scientific classification of
butterflies. After reading their response I can now more fully understand
why their web sites are prone to contain information that is short on fact and
long on opinion.
Contrary to Olle and Glassberg’s
assertion, I made no claim regarding the safety of any pesticide. I
mentioned that the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District has significantly
reduced its reliance on insecticide spraying for controlling adult mosquitoes by
using Bti which presents no risk to humans.
As lawyers, they are adept at
extracting bits of information from various sources to “prove” a point.
This can be demonstrated by their reference to M. Salvato’s “scientific report”
which concluded “Given the susceptibility of these butterflies in all their life
stages to the mosquito control insecticides presently in use, these chemicals
should be considered a major factor in the population declines and fluctuations
of the butterflies studied”. They conveniently omitted the fact that
Salvato’s paper was a laboratory study. Such studies cannot
duplicate chemical exposure as it occurs during actual mosquito control
operations in the field. They also referred to studies reviewed in the
Insecticide Fact Sheet about naled (Dibrom®) as reported in the Journal of
Pesticide Reform by Caroline Cox which painted a dismal picture regarding the
hazards associated with its use as a mosquito adulticide. Omitted was a
statement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “Naled can be used
for public health mosquito control programs without posing unreasonable risks to
the general population when applied according to the label”. Pesticides
are a lot like aspirin. When used according to label directions it can
produce amazing benefits but, may be harmful if used in excess of recommended
label rates.
A study conducted by Robert K.D.
Peterson et al. (2006, A Human-Health Risk Assessment for West Nile Virus and
Insecticides Used in Mosquito Management, Environmental Health Perspective
114:366-372) used a worst-case risk assessment method to evaluate human-health
risks for West Nile virus and the insecticides most commonly used to control
mosquitoes, including naled and permethrin. They found human-health risks
from residential exposure to the insecticides are low and are unlikely to exceed
levels of concern. Their results also indicate that, based on human-health
criteria, the risks from
Anyone who has studied any of the
biological sciences understands that without a standardized system of naming
butterflies and other living organisms there would be total chaos when
attempting to transfer knowledge regarding a particular species.
According to Messrs. Olle and Glassberg, there is no correct name for
butterflies or any other species. In other words, you can give a butterfly
any name you like without regard to any formal system of nomenclature. An
appropriate analogy for this can be found in the Old Testament in Genesis
11:1-9.
Also, one can find some interesting
reading about the confusion regarding whether the Miami Blue butterfly is really
Cyclargus or Hemiargus as Olle and Glassberg insist. Kurt Johnson, one of
the world’s preeminent authorities on blue butterflies, has some interesting and
colorful comments regarding scientific names of butterflies. I believe a
visit to the following Web site would be well worth the reader’s time:
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0201&L=nabokv-l&P=4405.
If the reader experiences any
difficulty logging onto either Web site, I will be happy to provide a copy of
the referenced material. Call Mosquito Control at
305-292-7190.
Florida Keys Mosquito Control
District
