WWU scientist tracks butterflies in North Cascades

| MAX BITTLE | THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

• The science of butterflies

• MORE ABOUT BUTTERFLIES
  
  Learn more about butterflies and conservation efforts by going to the Web sites for these organizations:

  • The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation at www.xerces.org.
  • North American Butterfly Association at www.naba.org.
  • Tropical Butterfly House at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle at www.pacsci.org/exhibits.

The 23-year-old Western Washington University student walks back to McLaughlin, who studies the bright orange and black spotted upper wings and admires the delicate lavender hue found on the outer edges on the underside of the wings.

"All right, a Western meadow (fritillary)," says McLaughlin, an associate professor who teaches environmental science in the university's Huxley College of the Environment.

In other parts of the mountain meadow, four more recent graduates or current students of Huxley also are searching for butterflies and recording their findings. They're working with McLaughlin to conduct an inventory of butterflies in the North Cascades and to estimate how plentiful they are.

They will use the information to fill in gaps in butterfly knowledge in Washington state, with help from a $43,759 grant from the National Park Service. This year, they're going out on counts in 10 locations in North Cascades National Park, Mount-Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, Mount Baker Wilderness and Okanogan National Forest. Next year, they'll focus on spots in Mount Rainier National Park.

The researchers also are creating a baseline that volunteers will add to in coming years to determine how climate change affects alpine and sub-alpine environments, McLaughlin explains.

For that, butterflies are particularly sensitive measuring sticks - partly due to their physical makeup, partly because of human fascination.

SUN WORSHIPPERS

Butterflies belong to the fourth largest order of insects, which are known as Lepidoptera. There could be as many as 1 million species in this order, most of which are moths, Richard Michael Pyle writes in his definitive field guide, "The Butterflies of Cascadia."

McLaughlin says there are 10 times as many moths as there are butterflies. But it is to butterflies that the Huxley crew are turning to tell the story of climate change in the region.

Butterflies are creatures of the sun, the way McLaughlin tells it. The larvae worms need sun and the corresponding warmth to be active enough to digest their food. The adult butterflies must have sun to prep their muscles for flight; if those muscles are not warm enough, they risk becoming easy prey for birds.

The winged adults can't do it themselves, so they must do what is called "basking" - that is opening their wings to absorb as much heat as possible.

"We generate our own heat," McLaughlin says. "Butterflies get their heat from the environment."

So sunny skies or cloudy skies affect them, as well as weather that's too hot or too cool.

The life cycle of butterflies also is tied to the blooming of the plants they feed upon. If temperatures are abnormally high or the snowpack too low, their eggs could hatch before the plants are ready. If the snowpack shrinks or turns more into rain, there may be less moisture available when the butterflies need it, according to McLaughlin.

In addition to their great sensitivity, butterflies also are a good "measure of response to climate change" because they have been studied extensively throughout the world. Those studies include the impact of climate change elsewhere.

"We're leveraging that information and that work," McLaughlin, 46, says.

Also, much is known about the distribution of butterflies so results can be compared around the world. Their diet is well documented, which makes it easy to figure out their habitats. They're easier to identify than say, bees, which require expertise. And volunteers are more likely to be excited about going out to look for butterflies than bees, McLaughlin says with a laugh.

But first comes the count.

HUNTING FOR HABITAT

Butterfly research in Washington dates back 150 years, according to Pyle's guide, which focuses on species found in this state, Oregon and surrounding areas of the Pacific Northwest.

McLaughlin used the book to pull together a list of butterflies that he and his assistants are likely to find in the areas of the North Cascades range where they're doing the count.

"Likely," because while the state has what he has described as a "pretty accurate record of species" and their habitats, there are two "large holes" - one being North Cascades National Park and the other Mount Rainier National Park. The forays this summer were supposed to focus on North Cascades National Park as part of an ongoing inventory of its natural wonders, including glaciers. McLaughlin already has helped survey birds, forest carnivores and a few other wild things in the park.

"This was one of the things that was not included in inventories in the last decade," he says of the butterflies.

But McLaughlin had to shelve his original plans to survey butterflies solely in the park with maybe a couple of forays to its borders after finding problems with the statistical sampling that was used to create a list of possible butterfly habitats. Early on, they found they'd hike in only to find a meadow that was too small or one with heather or blueberry plants, which are not food sources for butterflies.

Then, too, many of the original sites required an entire day just to hike in, and that would've been too inaccessible for a long-term monitoring plan dependent on volunteers. Such an effort would work only with day hikes.

So McLaughlin changed many of the locations to adjacent national forests or wild areas.

The idea is for the crew to survey environments 5,000 feet or above for butterflies through the end of summer. They're trying to see the first adults and follow them through to the end of their life cycle, with McLaughlin hoping they can visit each site three times. As they search for butterflies, they also record myriad data, such as water source, whether snow remains on the ground, temperature, sunlight, wind, slope of the ground, and distance to an adjacent meadow.

The research this year was further complicated by a heavier-than-usual snowpack and a cold spring, which in turn led to a late snowmelt. That put them back a couple of weeks. In fact, their visit to Skyline Divide on Aug. 15 is the first and it comes at the end of their fifth week out in the field.

COUNT DOWN

While McLaughlin and Crandall survey the part of the meadow closest to the trail, the other research assistants - Julia Munger, 22; Katy Wetzel, 21; Kara Kuhlman, 22; and Michelle Toshack, 22 - break into pairs to eyeball butterflies in other nearby meadows and along ridgelines. (Some butterfly males fly up to the highest point as soon as they emerge and the females will follow them as they search for mates.)

Overhead, the sky is blue but hazy. Snow-covered Mount Baker sits like a domed god on one side and Mount Shuksan like a jagged tooth on the other, the hint of blue of both their glaciers visible. The meadow is awash in wildflowers in shades of white and purple and yellow. The air drones with the buzzing of flies, mosquitoes and bees. The last hover from flower to flower, accompanied by the muscular grace of moths, which look like big lugs compared to the graceful flitting of butterflies.

There is little in the way of a breeze on this warm day.

Perfect conditions, then, for butterflies.

"We're going to need a lot of data sheets," Crandall says.

They would need far less, as it turns out.

As they walk along, they survey the landscape in sections, 100 meters at a time. The binoculars hanging around McLaughlin's neck rest against a smaller look-alike that's actually a laser range-finder. As they walk they document the butterflies that they find within an imaginary box around the seeker that's five meters above, five meters in front, and 21/2 meters on either side. They prefer to document their findings with their eyes or through the binoculars. But sometimes they have to catch fast-flying butterflies in their nets for a closer examination.

On this day, while there are plenty of moths, the butterflies are few.

"Geez, where are the butterflies? We ought to be inundated with butterflies," McLaughlin says. "It does not make sense at all."

That's not to say there aren't any.

The duo's findings include more Anicia silverspots and one with a dusting of blue.

"John, I have a silver blue here, I think," Crandall says.

"Cool," McLaughlin responds just before examining it.

"I think you're right," he says. "It's got a really thin body, but I think it's a female."

They see California tortoiseshell butterflies, a white one that's too fast to identify, and an orange-brown Arctic fritillary.

Later, McLaughlin puzzles over why they found a variety of butterflies but not much abundance. With Skyline Divide just melting out a little before their visit, maybe it was too cold for the butterflies. Maybe they were there too soon in the flight season. But the plants seem to be far enough along, McLaughlin muses.

"Of all our sites, that was the one most delayed by snow," he says.

They've experienced something similar in other meadows, where one visit yielded little but a follow-up was rewarded with many butterflies.

Climate changes could shift the butterfly season but it's too soon to tell.

"It's really hard to pick out a trend or anything from one visit," McLaughlin says. "I'm looking forward to going back and being able to answer the question."

Recent Stories

• Haggen continues to grow as shoppers look for value
• Will the shoppers show up? Bellingham retailers hope for busy Black Friday
• Sudden Valley won't install cluster mailboxes
• Time to solve 'the boy problem' in our schools
• Appalled by threat to Planned Parenthood