[Pollinator] Alabama butterflies radiant, but 'picture is not rosy, ' expert says

[Scott Black]

al.com


Alabama butterflies radiant, but 'picture is not rosy,' expert says

<http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/07/alabama_butterflies_radiant_bu.html>http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/07/alabama_butterflies_radiant_bu.html 


Published: Saturday, July 17, 2010, 6:30 
AM     Updated: Saturday, July 17, 2010, 8:24 AM

Thomas Spencer -- The Birmingham News

BRENT -- Above the dirt road, under a canopy of 
green in the midst of Oakmulgee District of the 
Talladega National Forest, the sky is suddenly 
aflutter with dozens of wide-winged butterflies.

Eastern tiger swallowtails, flash their yellow 
and black. Spicebush swallowtails flap with big 
black wings, highlighted by blue, white and 
orange. Tiny blue summer azures bob frenetically among them.

For a moment, Mike Howell, a biology professor at 
Samford University, is lost in a childhood 
reverie: "You won't see this in the city, boys and girls. It's a magic moment."

And one that may be getting rarer.

While Alabama's butterfly populations haven't 
been studied systematically like populations 
elsewhere, Howell's gut feeling is that the 
colorful clouds of summer's sprites he remembers 
from his 1940s childhood in rural South Alabama are fewer and farther between.

"I don't have hard data but I know what I see," Howell said.

Worldwide, scientists are sounding the alarm 
about "silent natural disaster' of plummeting populations of butterflies.

In March, at Butterfly Conservation's 
international symposium, British naturalist David 
Attenborough announced a major conservation push 
in Britain, where a report this year found that 
five butterfly species have gone extinct since 
the 1970s and most of the 54 remaining species were found to be declining fast.

Scientists in Europe and Japan also reported declines.

Scott Hoffman Black, the executive director of 
the U.S. based Xerces Society for Invertebrate 
Conservation, presented at the symposium similar 
concerns from North American experts.

"The picture is not rosy," Black said. "I queried 
experts from across the country. Most all of them 
noted that butterflies are in decline, some of 
our most common butterflies included. It seems to 
be continent-wide that we are seeing butterfly decline."

Scientists don't know the exact cause but point 
to a host of factors working against butterflies.

Climate change is pushing butterflies out of 
their familiar territory, bringing new predators in.

The landscape of weeds, wildflowers and wetlands 
butterflies prefer are increasingly fragmented due to suburban sprawl.

The aggressive use of pesticides to control 
mosquitoes and herbicides to maintain weed-free 
lawns and golf courses are also believed to be contributing to the decline.

To find a remaining richness of butterflies, 
Howell took to the back roads with Vitaly Charny, 
an amateur naturalist-turned butterfly expert, 
who has been documenting Alabama butterflies for more than a decade.

Far from the interstate and off a rural highway, 
native vegetation that has escaped the mowers 
rises up in dense stands of yellow: black-eyed Susans and coreopsis.

As if on cue, butterflies become more numerous.

Into the forest, the road turns to dirt and is 
bordered on either side bottomland and swamp. 
Here, the still air of summer begins darting with 
dragon and damselfly and bobbing with butterflies.

Shortly after getting out of the car, Charny has 
identified a yellow flash among the roadside 
weeds as a least skipper, North America's 
smallest butterfly. He follows with swallowtails, skippers and satyrs.

In a short span of time, Charny has counted 84 
butterflies from 21 of Alabama's 139 butterfly species.

"We're in a little butterfly heaven," Howell said.

By a clear creek, nectar producing plants like 
buttonbush, joe-pye weed and milkweed grow.

The butterfly dine not only on the nectar, but 
also sip minerals from dried mud puddles on the 
road and in swamp. The local flora also includes 
host plants, like the streamside switch cane, 
where the butterflies lay their eggs.

A little father down the road, a privately-owned 
plot of timber has been clear-cut. The adjacent 
plot was replanted as a dense pine plantation, a 
monoculture that won't be appealing to the butterflies.

It was in this area several years ago that Charny 
discovered a colony of the endangered Mitchell's 
Satyr, one of North America's rarest butterflies. 
He'd like to see more butterfly habitat 
preserved. "It's a good place to save," Charny says. Everything goes together."

Charny came to the U.S. as a political refuge 
from the former Soviet Union 21 years ago.

His university degree is in nuclear physics, but 
in the U.S. he's been everything from a janitor, 
to a librarian, to an assistant on an Alabama lizard breeding farm.

Now a software developer, Charny's passion and 
talent is finding, photographing and counting 
butterflies, a hobby he started in his native 
country but has developed in the United States.

Books

For almost a decade, he has been keeping 
systematic counts of butterflies at various sites in Alabama.

His work is a starting point for a larger effort 
to document Alabama butterfly populations so 
conservation efforts can be based on data.

Howell and Charny co-authored a new book 
"Butterflies of Alabama," hoping it can be the 
beginning of more interest in and attention to butterflies in the state.

Published by Pearson Learning Press, the 500-page 
photo-filled guidebook is the first book devoted 
specifically to the state's butterfly fauna.

Also on the way later this summer is another 
book: "Butterflies of Alabama: Glimpses into 
Their Lives" by Paulette H. Ogard and Sara C. 
Bright to be published as part of the Gosse 
Nature Guides series by the University of Alabama Press.

Butterflies are important links in the food chain 
and also have a role in pollination. Their 
presence is also an easy-to-spot marker. "They're 
are a good indicator species for the health of 
the surrounding ecosystem," Charny said.

Join the conversation by clicking to comment or 
e-mail Spencer at tspencer at bhamnews.com.

© 2010 al.com. All rights reserved.




*************************
Scott Hoffman Black
Ecologist/Entomologist
Executive Director
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
4828 SE Hawthorne
Portland, OR 97215
Direct line (503) 449-3792
sblack at xerces.org

The Xerces Society is an international, nonprofit 
organization that protects wildlife through the 
conservation of invertebrates and their habitat.

To join the Society, make a contribution, or read about our work,
please visit <http://www.xerces.org/>www.xerces.org.


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