[Odonata-l] Recommended article from Journal Watch Online: Save a Species 101

[Bob Glotzhober]

Hi Odonata ListServe,
Your friend, Bob Glotzhober, has recommended the article entitled 'Save a Species 101' to you from Journal Watch Online (http://journalwatch.conservationmagazine.org).

Save a Species 101
Posted By jessica On June 17, 2009 (1:26 pm) In Biodiversity,  Community-based conservation,  Endangered species,  Habitat

Scientists reverse the decline of "large blue"

The large blue butterfly, a conservation emblem, is enjoying a second lease on life after being wiped out from Britain in 1979. A team of Oxford University scientists is now for the first time publishing the results from the four decades of work it took to get to this point.

At first, scientists blamed butterfly collectors for the large blue’s mysterious woes, taking ineffective measures like fencing off their habitat as populations still dwindled. Then ecologist Jeremy Thomas took up residence with Britain’s last surviving colony in the early 1970s.  That colony itself soon disappeared but not before Thomas had collected enough data to trace five years’ of the large blue butterflies’ life cycle.

Thomas and team realized that it wasn’t the hobbyists to blame. The butterflies’ unique reliance on a specific ant species to raise their young caterpillars, who disguise themselves as ant grubs, was the real problem. This ant had been declining too, because farmers’ had stopped grazing livestock, causing overgrown grass to cool the soil to the point where the ants’ couldn’t survive. Armed with this knowledge, a team devised a reintroduction plan that has over the last twenty five years led to the return of the large blue butterfly to more than 30 colonies throughout the country and reversed its decline.

All of this, the authors say, provides a working model for the conservation of other butterflies and insects. While stopping overall habitat degradation might be more ideal, identifying and designing species-specific measures can sometimes be a practical approach. – Jessica Leber 

Source: Thomas, J.A. et al. Successful Conservation of a Threatened Maculinea Butterfly. Science DOI: 1126/science.1175726

Image Courtesy of David Simcox, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK


URL to article:
http://journalwatch.conservationmagazine.org/2009/06/17/save-a-species-101/

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