Managing land for butterfly habitat
- Determine what your goals for management are, and how they might best be achieved while maintaining biodiversity.
- First survey for species that may be affected by your actions. Identify habitat sub-units that will each have its own biota, such as a patch of goldenrod or a sedgey swale.
- Each sub-habitat has unseen species of invertebrates (assume 10 invertebrate species per plant species) that only use that portion of the habitat, so each patch must be treated as though it is the only place for some species to survive.
- Use multiple management techniques such as hand cutting trees, mowing, grazing, haying or burning.
- Apply management techniques at various times of the year so as not to impact all of one life stage of an invertebrate in a single event.
- Divide the site into multiple units using information from your surveys and apply your management techniques to only 1of 4 patches per year, being careful not to treat contiguous patches in the same year or in consecutive years. Those patches will be the re-colonization sources.
- Keep records and maps of which management techniques were used as well as when and where they were applied.
- Evaluate the success of each management technique for your management goals.
In sum, as you devise a plan and goals for managing habitat, consider biodiversity as a goal. One of the most efficient ways to promote diversity is to use diverse management techniques.
