Citizen interest helpful in insect conservation

By Dale Woodard on March 13, 2021.

Participation and personal interest can be helpful in addressing the conservation of insects and spiders in our area.
The not-so creepy and crawlies were the topic as the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs held its weekly Zoom conference Thursday morning.
On hand as the guest speaker was Dan Johnson – BSc, Sask; MSc, PhD, UBC, Institute of Animal Resource Ecology & Department of Plant Science – promoting public understanding of science, especially about ecosystems and biodiversity and fostering an appreciation for the lives of insects.
Johnson said citizens don’t necessarily need a degree or a piece of paper to garner a better understanding of the insects around us.
“How would you like to go to Mars and search for life and find some tiny remnant of past life on Mars?” asked Johnson. “You can do it right here. You can look at the ancient life of earth and look the amazing, incredible biodiversity that has resulted from it, particularly in the arthropod world, there are couple examples of the wild and crazy things you can find right outside the door.”
Addressing insect declines, Johnson said the bigger problem is there isn’t a lot of data.
“So in many cases we know certain insects are not declining and others possibly are, but the biggest problem is we don’t really have the monitoring we would need to even be able to tell,” he said.
“Everybody has heard about the windshield surveys, but if you happen to drive past the wetland all of a sudden you get a lot of insects and that’s not really a good database although there are indications.”
Addressing insect declines and why they’re happening, Johnson pointed to five needs, common sense and rational evaluation of evidence and data, a geographical approach of better records, reliable time series and understanding of the species, multi-disciplinary and training and involvement of citizen science.
The last one is the most important, said Johnson.
“If we can bring people into this as amateur scientists and entomologists who are aware of the world around them and keep track of species, we can have an enormously better database for answering these questions.”
Johnson cited the monarch butterfly as an example
“I found exactly two this year,” he said. “Usually, I find zero because we were at the northern edge of the range, but it’s an interesting story in North America.
“The monarch butterfly migrates and winter together. When they get this far north, they have a lot of challenges, like a short season.”
But Johnson said the biggest challenge is the monarch’s food, the showy milkweed, grows on the roadside and can be covered in dust.
He cited an example of a chrysalis that looked like to was going to produce a butterfly that was in trouble in that situation.
Johnson pointed out he doesn’t normally interfere, but he and his son helped the otherwise doomed butterfly.
“My son packaged up that chrysalis and took it out to a nearby lake and let it emerge and fly away.”
Johnson spoke of the long term data on the monarch.
“With agriculture and the way we practice it with tillage, when it came to North America it probably boosted the monarch butterflies number because of the weed and a better situation for growing. But lately, since the 1990s, there have been ups and downs, but mostly downs. It looks like they’re down. Some say half or two-thirds. They talk about habitat loss, pesticides, wild fires, changes in the food plant. If climate does continue to warm there will be differences in availability of the food plant and so on. So that’s a problem.”
Early data from the annual Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count shows the monarch population has fallen to another record low with fewer than 10,000 monarchs compared with millions during the 1980s and 300,000 just five years ago.
The butterflies have become so scarce the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now deciding whether or not to list the monarchs as part of the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
“There are societies that track it and follow it and it has fallen to a record low,” said Johnson. “It mentions other butterflies and they’re declining. We don’t know what will happen to them. Maybe they’re fine, but it could be in our lifetime that some of these are just lost.”
Johnson spoke of what people living in the northern edge of the range of the monarch can do, including planting showy milkweed.
“I’ve grabbed some before fall and winter came, so I’m planting it and spreading it around,” he said. “If we planted it down in the river valley and in the parks, golf courses and so on – and there is a program in the U.S. to do that on golf courses and we could do it here – that would likely help, because when they get to the northern extent of the range, if they can find a food plant, they have a chance. If they don’t find a food plant, that’s the end of the road.”

Johnson referenced an article from the Chicago Tribune saying it’s not too early to plan an urban monarch garden.

“So, try to find some milkweed seed.”

Johnson referenced a scientific paper with a summary of what can be done as citizens and scientists to help guard against global and local declines.

“Not all insects are declining, but we need to find out which are and that’s the problem. We don’t know,” he said.

The paper pointed to converting lawns into diverse natural habitats, growing native plants, reducing pesticide and herbicide use, limiting use of exterior lighting, lessening soap and salt runoff from washing vehicles and building exteriors, countering negative perceptions of insects and getting involved in local politics, supporting science and voting.

But the most important, said Johnson, was becoming and educator and ambassador on the subject.

“You don’t have to have a degree and you don’t even have to have a course. If you read, study and keep your eyes open you can become a very useful citizen/scientist in entomology and ecology.”

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