The Story of a Little Blue Butterfly: The Karner Blue

The Xerces Society is named for a blue butterfly, the Xerces blue, which went extinct in the 1940s. Luckily, there are other blues, some of which are doing fine and we can see regularly in our parks and neighborhoods, little butterflies who flash bright blue when they move their wings. Others, unfortunately, are not doing so well. In this episode, we are highlighting one of those, the Karner blue.

Joining us to talk more about this butterfly is Julie Michaelson. Julie works for the Xerces Society as a pollinator conservation planner and NRCS partner biologist covering the Connecticut River Valley in New England. In this role, Julie collaborates with the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service and the American Farmland Trust to provide technical support, training, and conservation planning assistance to farmers and land managers seeking to develop pollinator and beneficial insect habitat. Prior to joining Xerces, Julie was an environmental steward with New York state parks where she monitored and managed habitat for the endangered Karner blue butterfly, the topic of today’s conversation.

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Cover Photo: Justin Meissen CC BY-SA 2.0

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Transcript

Rachel: Welcome to Bug Banter with the Xerces Society, where we explore the world of invertebrates and discover how to help these extraordinary animals. If you want to support our work, go to xerces.org/give.

Matthew: Hello, I'm Matthew Shepherd in Portland, Oregon.

Rachel: And I'm Rachel Dunham in Missoula, Montana.

Matthew: The Xerces Society is named for a blue butterfly, the Xerces blue, which went extinct in the 1940s. Luckily, there are other blues, some of which are doing fine and we can see regularly in our parks and neighborhoods, little butterflies who flash bright blue when they move their wings. Others, unfortunately, are not doing so well. In this episode, we are highlighting one of those, the Karner blue.

Matthew: Joining us to talk more about this butterfly is Julie Michaelson. Julie works for the Xerces Society as a pollinator conservation planner and NRCS partner biologist covering the Connecticut River Valley in New England. In this role, Julie collaborates with the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service and the American Farmland Trust to provide technical support, training, and conservation planning assistance to farmers and land managers seeking to develop pollinator and beneficial insect habitat. However, prior to joining Xerces, Julie was an environmental steward with New York state parks, where she monitored and managed habitat for the endangered Karner blue butterfly, the topic of today’s conversation.

Matthew: Welcome to Bug Banter, Julie!

Julie: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Excited to talk about the Karner blue today.

Rachel: We're excited to have you here. To start us off, can you describe the Karner blue butterfly? How big is it?

Julie: Yeah, of course. Like Matthew said, it's a small blue butterfly. It's only about an inch long. Like everyday objects to reference would be like about a quarter, or a standard bottle cap. And they're sexually dimorphic, which means that the males and the females look quite different. So the male Karners are really vibrant, pure blue with white fringe along the edge of their wings. And the females have a little bit more of a drab appearance with a brownish blue hue to their wings. The females also—on the top of their wings, on the edge of the hindwing have like a row of sort of orangey spots slash bands that you can distinguish them from the male. And then both genders, when you can see the underside of the wings, are really silvery. They have these like white-ringed black spots.

Julie: And then something that distinguishes them from a lot of the other blues, particularly in my region, in the Northeast, is that they have this row of orange spots along the edge of their hind wing. I'm not quite sure for areas like Minnesota and Wisconsin, if they have blues that have similar orange spots. But in the Northeast, the Karner blue is really the only blue butterfly that you'll see that has that pretty distinguishable pattern.

Rachel: Sounds quite magical. Thank you for describing them. In the intro, Matthew mentioned our namesake, the Xerces blue butterfly. Given the name, the Karner blue butterfly, are they related?

Julie: Yes. That's a great question. And they look quite similar, if you look at their pictures. But yeah, they are in the same family, Lycaenidae, also called the gossamer-winged butterflies. Going like further into taxonomy, they might also be classified in the same tribe known as the blues—that's they're more common name that they're grouped under. But Xerces blue and Karner blue are quite different in range, in habitat, and host plants. Something that does connect them though, is that they are quite severe habitat specialists. They really have these tight reliances on specific types of habitat, and plants that kind of make them more vulnerable to other, more generalist species that may thrive in a variety of conditions.

Rachel: That makes sense. And how did the Karner blue butterfly get its name?

Julie: This is a great question. So, the well-known Russian author, Vladimir Nabokov, was a lesser-known entomologist—specifically a lepidopterist. So really into butterflies. He is actually the first person to capture and describe a Karner blue butterfly. And the individual that he captured was from Karner, New York, which is now known as Albany Pine Bush, one of the largest like Karner blue reserves in New York State. So really, their common name was just coined from that original location that it was captured and described from. And then of course, the blue part is straightforward. They are blue—they are so blue—so that is appropriate.

Rachel: And you had mentioned the gossamer wings, being a member of that group of butterflies because of how they shimmer in the sunshine, describing their beautiful blue colors. How are those colors created?

Julie: Another great question. Butterflies and moths are in the order Lepidoptera, which means scale winged. So the adults of butterflies and moths are covered in millions of scales. And a lot of the variation in color derives from these scales, whether it be from like direct pigmentation, or from the actual structure of the scale and how it interacts with light. So in the cases of blues, like the Karner blue, their scales are actually translucent, and it's just the like layering, and 3D structure, and configuration of the scales that actually absorb all wavelengths except for that blue coloration, which reflects back to our eyes, and gives them that shimmery blue appearance. Which is so cool. I love those things where it's the gap between how we think reality is, and our brain receives information based on light patterns, and those sorts of things is just—. Yeah, super cool to me.

Rachel: Yeah, they're very cool. I love when I’m out hiking and all of a sudden, there's like a group of blue butterflies, and they're just so shiny, and magical. And I like that they're not huge. There’s sort of this like magical moment when they open their wings. You're like, “Oh my goodness, it's so blue!”

Julie: Seeing like the blues, or even some of the damselflies that have similar like shimmering coloration, it's no wonder why fairies like started existing in lore. Like when you see them shimmering out in forests and over ponds—that's a reasonable explanation to me.

Rachel: Definitely. It's hard to not feel like you're in a Disney movie when you're like surrounded by butterflies, in general, but especially the blue ones. I'm always like, “I feel like I should start singing or something.”

Matthew: If you start singing, will like all the butterflies come to you, you think? Because that's normally what happens when the Disney princess starts singing.

Julie: When I was out in the fields doing like butterfly monitoring and whatnot, I would definitely like sing a song, or talk to myself, or, you know, those things that just keep you going in field work. I can tell you didn't attract the butterflies, that's for sure. But it made me feel part of nature in some way.

Matthew: And I'm just wondering how would you write that up in your report? “Monitoring. When I sang this song, I saw—.”

Julie: Haha. Yeah. Not scientific.

Matthew: You just mentioned being out in the field. Where might we find the Karner blue, and do they have particular habitat requirements that they need?

Julie: Yes. So that's a big question. I feel like we could break that up into a couple different parts. One, being like their general range. In the U.S., as an example, like where will we see them? And they're really restricted to the northern Midwest and Northeast. Like as far west as Minnesota, historically, to as far east as, historically, Maine. However, they've since been extirpated in Maine, so now it's as far east as New Hampshire. And so, much of their range there are scattered populations throughout, but then they're also extirpated from, like I said, Maine, Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, so. Currently lacking in a lot of the states that they were historically found in. And this range is really dependent on a specific habitat, with this habitat being pine barren or oak savanna.

Julie: So these habitats are characterized by dry, sandy, nutrient-poor soils, that, in many cases throughout the Karners range, including where I worked in New York state, was remnant of the sand deposited by meltwater flowing into the glacial lakes once the glacier covering much of northern North America started melting. Once those glaciers started melting, and you have these large sand deposits—that then became terrestrial habitat that plants colonized—these dry, sandy environments were really vulnerable to frequent fires. So that's another really important characteristic of this habitat, is that frequent fire, which will minimize the growth of woody species, as well as reduce the buildup of organic material like leaves.

Julie: All of those processes keep these dry, sandy nutrient-poor environments just as that—dry and sandy, so that the plants that establish there, they have to be able to endure not only nutrient-poor conditions, but frequent disturbance. So you get these specially adapted, fire-dependent or tolerant species like pitch pines and scrub oaks. And then you have tons of like other specialist herbaceous species that thrive in these like sunny openings created by disturbance. Grasses like big blue stem and little blue stem, small shrubs like New Jersey tea and prairie willow, and then herbaceous flowers like wild lupin. Wild lupin being a really critical part of this puzzle piece, as the sole host plant for the Karner blue.

Matthew: So that lupin is the key there. Thinking about the annual cycle. When are these butterflies active? Are they a spring butterfly, or a summer butterfly?

Julie: Yeah, kind of both. So they're what is called bivoltine. So they have two generations in a year. In New York, in particular, as an example—and this is pretty consistent throughout their range—you'll start to see the first generation emerge as adults come May. So first, they overwinter as eggs, and then in the spring, they emerge as caterpillars. Their host plant, wild lupin, really, it's one of the first plants to pop out of the soil. And they have these like really beautiful, fan-like leaves that collect water and are just so magical to see in the spring. So the egg overwinters, the caterpillar emerges, starts feeding on the leaves, and then by late May, early June, they're populating and emerging as that first generation of adults. That first generation of adults, they're nectaring, they're reproducing. They lay another generation on the base of lupin stems, which that next generation's gonna go through the same process, within the same growing season, and emerge come July, and sometimes up until early August, as well.

Julie: That second generation, nectars, reproduces, and then lays their eggs at the base of lupin stems, which will then overwinter, and become the generation for the following growing season. So that's kind of the general pattern that you follow for Karners throughout their entire range. Although it can vary year by year depending on, you know, the emergence of lupin, the climate. And that's one of the sort of issues is sometimes you have a little bit of a mismatch. If you have a particularly warm spring or something you might get it speeding up before the correct nectar resources are available or something like that.

Matthew: When you said they were bivoltine, I was thinking, “Oh, lupins, they bloom in the spring.” But then I'm forgetting that the plant's there for longer. And the fact that they have a bloom really doesn't matter for these butterflies. It's the vegetated part of the plant that's important to them.

Julie: Exactly, yeah. Yeah, so you'll see—like the lupin leaves, like they really only start to senesce sometimes up until August. So they're pretty prevalent throughout the habitat throughout most of the growing season. And then, yeah, like you said, it's—. The lupin is the host plant for the caterpillar, but Karner adults nectar on a really wide range of resources. And because they’re bivoltine—. You know, we talk about like with pollinator conservation, providing that secession of bloom for pollinators. Here, we're looking at a single species that has an activity period potentially from May until August. And so covering that entire bloom period so they have nectar resources. And similar to a lot of other butterflies, they look for very specific nectar resources from plants like butterfly milkweed, or black-eyed Susan—other plants that you often see in these pine barren and oak savanna habitats.

Matthew: I know several species of blue butterflies have a relationship with ants. Is Karner blue one of those?

Julie: Yes! Oh my gosh! I love this question, as well. I love ants. Yes, this was one of my favorite things to observe out in the field. Yeah, the Karner blue caterpillars are definitely one of the blues that are tended by certain species of ants. One of the species that I frequently observed was the Allegheny mound ant. So pine barren, oak savanna, they're quite open. It's early successional, sunny habitat. These Allegheny mound ants, you kind of see them create these massive mounds of sand that really stick out in these habitats. But you'll see the ants patrolling up and down the stems. And they can actually be easier to find than the caterpillars themselves. So I often use them as like a guide of, “Bring me to the caterpillars.” And what the ants are doing there is—the caterpillars, as they're feeding, they're secreting a sugary liquid that attracts the ants. And then the ants’ presence on the lupin stem, as well as on the caterpillars themselves as they consume that liquid, helps deter predators and parasitoids. So it's very sort of a mutualistic relationship of the ants get a nice free meal, and then the Karner caterpillars benefit from reduced predation or parasitism.

Matthew: I've always been fascinated by these relationships between—particularly between the blues and the ants—because we tend to think about plants, and maybe what happens during the winter—what kind of shelter do they need? But the fact that they may actually need the presence of a totally different unrelated species—.

Julie: I know!

Matthew: —I just find this fascinating.

Julie: I feel like ants always pop up in different stories in very unique ways. They're kind of ubiquitous in a lot of different habitats, and provide a surprising amount of ecosystem services, and relationships with other organisms that I think are often overlooked, so. Always appreciate a question about ants.

Rachel: I agree. Ants are very cool and definitely underappreciated. Haha.

Julie: Yes.

Rachel: So the Karner blue butterfly was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act back in 1992. What was the reason for its decline, or reasons, I should say?

Julie: Yeah, reasons. That's the key word there. Like many insects, it's, you know, that little bit of everything. One of the professors I used to work for, David Wagner, in one of his really important papers, describes decline of insects as like death by a thousand cuts, where it's a little bit of everything in that culmination of all those factors interacting, that is really leading to these catastrophic declines that we're observing.

Julie: So with the Karner blue, in particular, habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation is the utmost importance in what's most evidently contributing to declines. And this is from things like fire suppression—. Pine barrens are nice and flat, so they're ripe for development. It's not a developed forest, so you don't have to do much clearing. It's like somebody would go out there, they'd look at—it might look like a sand pit, and you might see some purple flowers, like wild lupin, forming dense stands. But for the most part I can understand why humans think it's like an attractive development opportunity, as well.

Julie: And then invasive species, too. You have these frequently disturbed environments that are just conducive for quick establishment of invasive species. And then besides the sort of habitat loss aspect, there's a lot of other factors. Mosquito sprays are one of the things that have been explored as a potential contributing to their declines. And then overbrowsing of their host plant, wild lupin, from deer. And then, what brings me the most anxiety, is climate change, because with Karner populations, we have a lot of isolated populations. So Karners, they're a small butterfly, they have very limited dispersal capacity. Sometimes I think the estimate is 0.2 miles up to a mile. And it depends on what's in between the habitat, and whether they'll actually use that habitat to disperse between adjacent habitats. So when you have like frequent disturbance, extreme heat, droughts, those sorts of things, and then you don't have other habitats to migrate to, or, especially migrate northward into, climate change is proving to be something that's really complicating all of these factors.

Julie: Another thing with climate change is reduced snowpack. Like I was talking about, those eggs are the part that overwinter at the base of lupin stems, and they benefit from snowpack. It's like an insulator. So, there's a lot of these—they seem like little things, but when you have each part of their lifecycle has a potentially different stressor, and then all of that together just creates a disaster for the species.

Rachel: Not to anthropomorphize these butterflies, but it's very similar to humans. I think we can relate in that way when you're getting hit on all sides, in all these different areas of your life that—. Just, it accumulates. We often think there's like one smoking gun for conservation for these species, and it's—no, it's all these things affecting them, and sometimes we don't even understand how those impacts interact with each other. And it's a lot for them to deal with. And these just little butterflies, in some ways they're stronger than we think, and more resilient. But in other ways, it's like these tiny creatures, like you said, can't even travel more than a mile.

Julie: Absolutely. Yeah, you always hope that—. Our ignorance on how these interactions take place, maybe the species will prove to be very resilient in certain aspects. But that's the thing, is that like when you just have like too many things thrown at populations, and then you have that isolation of populations, too, and reduced gene flow, and those sorts of things, it just becomes—yeah. What chance do they have? So that's where like management—like Karners really need intentional management from humans, at this point. Without intentional human management of their habitats we would likely see a much quicker decline than we're seeing.

Rachel: Definitely. And that's part of why the Endangered Species Act is so important. We've seen some animals, like the bald eagle with high success. So with that, it's been 34 years since it was listed, what efforts have been put into place to recover this species?

Julie: I could never do justice, I think, to this question of all the different projects and organizations that are working on this. That's one thing that I think like Karners are like [the] best-case scenario sometimes of look at all these people that have expressed interest in this one species of insect, that I think is really hopeful that we can do this, we can collaborate, and have meaningful conservation efforts that are improving populations. Because we've definitely, I think, made an impact. But, in general, the Fish and Wildlife Service put together a really wonderful recovery plan shortly after listing that kind of put together like priorities to conserve the Karner blue throughout its range. And with that recovery plan, state and federal agencies, as well as nonprofits, like the Nature Conservancy, have really been working tirelessly to protect the existing populations through conservation and improved management of remaining habitats. As well as the creation of new habitats, which I think is really exciting.

Julie: You know, in New York State, as an example, there is a lot of focus on: we have some of these existing populations. They're really small. The first step is improved management of where they are. And then let's expand the habitat, and let's think about fragmentation, and ways to connect the habitats throughout the Hudson Valley, to facilitate dispersal between habitats and make it more of a metapopulation, we call it, of this interacting gene flow between a bunch of different, more isolated populations. So all of that has been going on. There's also several states—I think New Hampshire and Indiana—they've successfully reintroduced the Karner blue, which is exciting. So they were extirpated, but through rearing efforts, and creating new habitat, or improving existing habitat, and management have been doing successful reintroductions.

Julie: New Hampshire is one of the sites that I got to go out to. And it's actually kind of more facilitated by the creation of an airport, which has created early successional habitat. But the Karner population is doing fairly well, and it's a really beautiful site. Just the wild lupin, you can see like for miles and miles, like on these like undulating hills. It's just such a beautiful site. Yeah, a lot of good stuff has been going on.

Rachel: And how are their populations doing now? What's been the trajectory over the last 34 years?

Julie: Yeah. This is another overwhelming question that I don't think I could ever do justice to. Because, you know, it varies state to state. Even, like I was saying, some of the populations are very isolated, and so habitat to habitat, it can really vary. And, you know, each population faces unique challenges. Just as a couple like specific examples, Indiana—one of the states that I had said had done a reintroduction—when the Karner was first listed in 1992, Indiana Dunes National Park had one of the largest populations. It was like five to ten thousand butterflies. Which doesn't sound like a lot. We're talking about an endangered butterfly here, so at that time, like that was one of the largest remaining populations. But, since 1992 and following some extreme heat in like the mid 2000s, the populations were wiped out. And the last butterfly was seen in 2014. So you have cases like that which are depressing. And like I said, there are reintroduction efforts going throughout some areas that they were extirpated.

Julie: But then you have other places like Albany Pine Bush in New York, which has generally been seeing some really wonderful increases. I think when they started monitoring in 2007, they—in the second brood, the second generation of adults—they had like 850 butterflies in that monitoring event. And then in 2014, I think that number like had increased to 14,000 or somewhere along those lines. So a lot of success stories out there, as well. It varies site by site. And like all insect populations, it can really vary year by year. So having consistent monitoring efforts year by year is really important for those long-term trends.

Julie: In the last five years, though, to be honest, I'm not too sure how populations have been faring. I know some of the monitoring efforts—in some locations, because of COVID and those sorts of things—have been disrupted. And I haven't seen any concise reports on how numbers are doing more recently.

Matthew: Some of those figures are A: impressive, and B: sad.

Julie: Yeah, that's the summary. Haha. Yeah.

Matthew: But I was also thinking, it harks back to your other comment about metapopulations. And you wonder, like if you do have an isolated population, it is more vulnerable to these kinds of abrupt changes. Whereas if you have connected populations, and a landscape that can support the butterflies more widely, then they have a little more resilience, particularly with, I don't know, a really hot summer, maybe? Or, yeah, the last couple of years I think New Jersey has been having wildfires in these kinds of areas, too.

Julie: Yeah. Yeah. And so that resilience part is really important. The large, continuous areas of habitat with connecting adjacent habitat just aids for a more resilient population. And having variability in the landscape, as well. For Karners, too, like I was talking about pine barren and oak savanna habitat, but there's a lot of adjacent habitats that they also use. Karners do relied on some degree of shade to help them maintain their body temperature. So having shaded areas, whether that be like in a single like little tree island within a pine barren or oak savanna, or like an adjacent forest, which might also be utilized in certain periods, or even like wetter areas of the habitat that might hold moisture better and have reliable nectar resources. Like having that variability in the environment, and diverse microclimates and resources is really important. Despite what type of disturbance that you have, you'll have, hopefully, some area of habitat that can get that population through.

Matthew: We mentioned at the beginning that you used to work for the New York State Parks doing monitoring and habitat management. Can you tell us a bit about that work?

Julie: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so that was a really fun opportunity that I had, yeah, like you said, with New York State Parks monitoring and managing a Karner blue habitat in Saratoga Springs. It was pretty small. It was like 60 to 70 acres. But it was a really isolated population that was adjacent to some of the larger populations that we were really trying to keep this existing population and its habitat in as good of a condition as possible. So I was looking at the plant community at the site, contributing to large data sets that were keeping track of how that desired plant community was faring, and noting any changes that might warrant like the need for intervention. And then, of course, monitoring the butterfly population to keep track of their numbers over time. Once again, contributing to that larger data set, which is really of the utmost important to really understand how populations are doing over time.

Julie: At this site, unfortunately, I was sometimes only seeing two to three Karners in a flight period. Which is incredibly low. It was very concerning. And I don't know how—I think the last monitoring that I did was about five years ago, so I'm not too sure how populations have been varying since then. But it was a really, insightful look into conservation, and the challenges, and the joys, and the anxieties that come out of it. And a lot of the nuance, too, of making management decisions. Yeah, but a really wonderful opportunity to work with the people in New York State Parks, and Albany Pine Bush, and New York, DC to come together to conserve this species.

Matthew: You just mentioned challenges and joys. What do you think are the biggest challenges maybe for the Karner? And also the biggest joy?

Julie: Yeah, so I'll start with the challenge, so we can end on the joy. We talked about pine barrens and oak savannas, and being frequented by fire. I should clarify that the fire component is particularly important for the Karner blue host plant, wild lupin, Lupinus perennis. It helps keep that environment open and sunny, reduces competition, reduces leaf litter, keeps it like nice, open, sandy soils that the lupin can successfully outcompete other plants. When you have the absence of fire, or absence of really any disturbance, you have that process of secession in which the plant community changes, and lupin generally just cannot compete well with other plants, so needs that disturbance component.

Julie: That being said, I would definitely say that the fire is one of the most—the biggest challenges for managing Karner habitat because, you know, just communicating the importance and necessity of fire to maintain these rare habitats is a challenge. And, of course, it not being suitable for any given part of the landscape. Fire is really effective, but like the site that I was working on was tightly embedded in a suburban area. Fire wasn't really an option. So we used rotational mowing which was pretty decent at keeping it at early stages of secession, but it wasn't so effective at some of the invasive species management.

Julie: And then also, the leaf litter aspect. In these particular habitats—talking about pine barrens and oak savannas—that leaf litter buildup like helps to keep that secession process going. And so fire can come and destroy that layer of leaf litter, and keep it more suitable for the host plant for the Karner blue. And so yeah, without fire or regular disturbance, we start to see it shift to like shrub and tree thickets, and forests, which are, of course, really valuable for other organisms. But the problem here is that we're seeing a near disappearance of these types of habitats from the landscape, which is a huge issue for those specialists, like the Karner blue that, you know, exclusively depend on them for survival.

Julie: And then the—.

Matthew: And the joy?

Julie: Yeah, the joy! I can't tell you how exciting it is to see a Karner blue flying out—. No matter like how many I see. Like the first Karner blue of the season, I'm inevitably like shedding a couple of tears. I get so excited. Just to—with any organism—like getting to see something that, of course, I have a really deep fondness for them, and care about their fate. And so like every time I see them, each year, it just brings up a lot of emotions. And it's just so wonderful to see them nectaring, and seeing the caterpillars feed, and all of those things. Just being able to observe pine barren and oak savanna habitat, and Karner blues within them, is just a really, it's a really special type of habitat that I don't think is too frequent in the landscape. So it provides some like really unique wildlife viewing opportunities, too.

Matthew: I totally understand that. Some of my favorite places are grasslands on hills—.

Julie: Yeah.

Matthew: —in southern England. Particular type of chalk, calcareous grassland that when you see one, it's astonishing the abundance of blooms. And associated with that, there are several species of blue butterfly, as well, as it happens. But it's just seeing that I totally understand. And obviously, we would love more people to have this kind of sense of joy. And also within Bug Banter, we like to give people something they can take away and do—an action, if possible. But I realize with an endangered species like the Karner blue, it's a little harder. But do you think, I mean if people do live in the area where the Karner blue exists, or maybe could, are there things that they can do to help?

Julie: There's always things to be done, that's for sure. Like you said, with endangered species, creating habitat is a little bit of a tricky topic that I won't go too much into here because of plant genetics, and do you even have like a habitat or site that is adjacent to a habitat that they would disperse from—all of those certain things. So generally, I wouldn't think most cases it would be about creating habitat in your own backyard, but rather looking for those preserves in your area and getting involved with them. That's gonna be the best way to learn more about the local stressors of the populations near you. The needs of those preserves—talk to the experts, learn about what resources they need. I know in New York, a lot of times we would engage with volunteers on like seed collection, or habitat improvement projects like seeding or planting. So there's just a lot of opportunities, I think, to get involved on those parcels where organizations, whether it be like state and federal agencies or nonprofits, they need resources to help manage the properties.

Julie: And then of course, donations, as well. I know several of the people that manage the habitats like Albany Pine Bush and whatnot, look for volunteers and donations all the time to help facilitate and fund this work.

Rachel: Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us, and your experience. We're gonna end on our two questions. So this is my favorite question. What inspired you to work with insects?

Julie: Yeah. Perhaps the toughest question you've asked so far. I feel like it was a lot of stumbling for me. Haha. But, in general, I think like my parents were really encouraging of all organisms having an intrinsic value, and being, you know, worth our time and attention. I think I took that really sincerely, and spent a lot of my time as a kid ushering caterpillars across the road, or like picking up worms after a rainstorm. I even like used to like try to warm up bumblebees. And it was like these things that you do as a kid, where you're like, “This is helping, right?” Haha. It's like kind of a lot of anthropomorphizing that I was just getting involved in. But I think that is like an important start, for me, at the very least, because it wasn't very scientific, it was very emotional, where I was like, “I feel a deep need to like do something for these organisms.” And it wasn't until, you know, much later that I think, because of that, ecology felt like one of the most important things for me to understand. To like figure out how I can effectively help.

Julie: And along that path, from mentors, like David Wagner, like I mentioned at UConn, and Jane O'Donnell, who is also an important mentor of mine at UConn, that helped me understand that like insects were like, for me, at the very least, like a secret foundational piece for like a perspective that I was looking for with ecology, that I really wanted to get involved in. And then like from there it was just—it continued stumbling. “I wanna do this,” and, “I wanna do this.” Like I worked with army ants, and then I worked with butterflies, and then I worked with moths, and then I worked with parasitoids. And so like just a little bit of everything, with a little bit too much enthusiasm and lack of direction. But it got me somewhere, so that's okay.

Matthew: We ask that question to all of our guests, and I don't think anybody's had a really linear route to where they are. I think we've all gone around in a few circles and tried some other things. And then some cases it was a chance encounter, in other cases it was like in the background, just always wanting, but needing to find that opportunity. So I have to say I'm really pleased that you stumbled in the direction of Xerces, so.

Julie: Haha. Yeah, me too.

Matthew: And our very last question for you today is: if you could see any bug in the wild, what would it be?

Julie: Yeah, so I knew this question was coming, and I was like, “I have a whole list.” And I was like, “Gosh, which one do I decide on?” And so the one I'm choosing is maybe a cop out because it allows me to see many other insects, as well, which is some of the army ant species like Eciton burchellii. I got to work with Jane O'Donnell at UConn on the Carl and Marian Rettenmeyer Army Ant collection, and just got to learn so much about them through that experience that now it's just been like a lifelong dream to go down to like Central and South America to see some of the raids, in particular. I'd love to see an active raid of some of the army ant species. And why that allows me to see many other insects on top of that is because there's so many other organisms—invertebrates and vertebrates—that depend on army ants. Like in those raids, you'll see like mites, and rove beetles, and birds, and butterflies, like all these organisms that flock just to the activity of these army ants that yeah, it's like getting to see a whole show for targeting one specific species. But yeah, definitely army ants, I think.

Matthew: I lived in Kenya for a couple of years. And there, we had what we call safari ants.

Julie: Yeah.

Matthew: And they raided my house one night.

Julie: Haha.

Matthew: But it was known that this might happen, so you just clear out, you just go to the bar and let them do it.

Julie: Yeah, that's the thing is that, they're not gonna come back. They're just coming through. Yeah. They'll be on their way.

Matthew: And your house will be cleaned.

Julie: Yeah. You'll be free of any other invertebrates that you didn't want in your house. They'll eat them right up. Oh, that's fun! Yeah, any environment. If it's in a house, or anything, I'd like to see them anywhere. But yeah, definitely army ants are very near and dear to my heart.

Rachel: I wonder how many of our listeners are visualizing all these ants coming into their home and just thinking like, “That's normal—.”

Julie: Haha.

Rachel: “That's fine. They’ll clean it out. I'm just gonna go on a walk and come back later.”

Rachel: Thank you, Julie, so much. You definitely gave me an idea for another episode on army ants. Yeah, I just appreciate you being here. I've really enjoyed this episode, and learning more. So, thank you. It's been a real pleasure.

Julie: Yeah, thank you both so much. It's been wonderful to talk to you both.

Matthew: Thank you, Julie.

Matthew: Bug Banter is brought to you by the Xerces Society, a donor-supported nonprofit that is working to protect insects and other invertebrates—the life that sustains us.

Matthew: If you are already a donor, thank you so much. If you want to support our work, go to xerces.org/donate. For information about this podcast or for show notes, go to xerces.org/bugbanter.