Saving One Butterfly Species Fueled a Collaborative Nature of Survival, Rescuing a Whole Ecosystem

Upland prairie landscapes, such as the 685,000 acres of the Willamette Valley in Oregon, were once rich in plants, grassy meadows, wildflowers, and oaks. But their disappearance has also led to the decline of countless species that once thrived there. One of these species is the nickel-sized butterfly called Fender's blue.

According to Benton County's website, this butterfly was among the endangered species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act of 2000. They were considered extinct from 1940 until the late 1980s, when biologists discovered a few remaining populations on prairie remnants in the Willamette Valley.

Saving Fender's Blue Butterfly

Professor Cheryl Schultz from Washington State University has helped lead Fender's conservation for almost 30 years. But trying to save Fender's blue offers quite a challenge due to its limited habitat, so biologists must expand them to prevent its extinction.

More so, they live in a landscape dominated by human endeavors of agriculture, urban development, and private land development. According to High Country News, Schultz began her work by observing Fender's blue to understand their ecology further. Then she and her colleagues used their findings to help develop the US Fish and Wildlife Service Fender's blue recovery plan.

"Recovery takes three things," she said. "Science, time, and partnerships," Schultz told High Country News and explained that conservation cannot be done without these three.

But perhaps the butterfly's recovery story starts with the plant named Kincaid's lupine. It is a perennial wildflower with palm-shaped leaves and muted purple blossoms. Fender's blue has a tight relationship with this plant as it provides food and shelter. But this plant is also exceedingly rare, growing in upland prairies with an ecosystem of grasses and forbs that build soil unless something interrupts the process.

That disturbance came from fires managed by the Kalapuya people, who regularly burn prairies to facilitate hunting and sustain plant communities to provide food. But when settlers displaced the community, burning ceased, and the prairies were swiftly plowed for agricultural fields and settlements.

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Conserving the Lupine to Save the Butterfly

The Atlantic reports that researchers from the Institute for Applied Ecology have been studying the plant to reverse the trend of the Fender's blue butterfly population. They developed conservation strategies, such as the symbiotic relationships it form with the mycorrhizal fungi and rhizobium bacteria that provide nutrients and a steady supply of nitrogen to bolster the success of the plants.

The team planted the seed in their production farm and sought ways to boost the cultivated supply in collaboration with other institutions and organizations. Soon, they successfully produced tens of thousands of Kincaid's lupine seeds that grew into adult plants and have become the host of Fender's caterpillars in restored prairies across the Willamette Valley.

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) service began restoring the habitat of Fender's blue at Baskett Slough in the mid-1990s by removing encroaching weeds from lupine patches and controlling invasive species, then replanting the plants with native vegetation. As the plants grew, so did the population of Fender's blue.

Fender's blue habitat now covers a hundred acres at Baskett Slough, but the work is not done as the prairie should be actively managed. That means it will involve partnerships with private landowners, the government, and conservation groups.

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