Restoration of the Regal Fritillary Butterfly on Iowa Prairies - Dianne Debinski
| Date/Time: | Wednesday, 05 Apr 2006 at 7:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Location: | Hughes Auditorium, Reiman Garden |
| Cost: | Free |
| Contact: | |
| Phone: | 515-294-9934 |
| Channel: | Lecture Series |
| Categories: | Lectures |
| Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
Many prairie-associated butterfly species in the Midwestern United States have been declining because of the destruction and fragmentation of their habitat. One of the most problematic questions for prairie reconstruction is the adequacy of habitat for any given species. They first established 20 plots of S. idalia's host plant, Viola pedatifida (blue prairie violet) across the refuge in 1999-2000. Due to the small number of potential donor populations, the progress of the work has been slow. Only a few individuals have been moved to the refuge each year. However, the introductions appear to have been successful because the butterfly has been present in good numbers for the past few years. It thus appears, that in the case of S. idalia, reconstructed prairies on the order of thousands of hectares may serve as adequate habitat for reintroduction efforts. Additional time will be required to determine whether the population will sustain long-term viability.
Debinski bio: Dr. Debinski pursues research and teaching in the fields of conservation biology, landscape ecology, and restoration ecology. She is particularly interested in understanding how habitat fragmentation affects the distribution of rare species and in developing methods to mitigate this habitat fragmentation. She uses a variety of tools including remote sensing and geographic information systems to map and analyze landscape components. In Iowa, she is specifically interested in restoring prairie habitats and their related species. She is using the Regal Fritillary butterfly species as a model to understand how to put the pieces of a prairie ecosystem back together.