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Managing
land for butterfly habitat
1. Determine what your goals
for management are, and how they might best be achieved while
maintaining biodiversity.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Use multiple management techniques such as hand cutting
trees, mowing, grazing, haying or burning.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Keep records and maps of which management techniques
were used as well as when and where they were applied.
8. 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.
Iowa's
Butterflies Article
Life
stages of Iowa's butterflies
Web sites and books about butterflies
For more information,
e-mail Cathy Engstrom,
Director of Communications, or call (515) 288-1846.
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