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Direct and indirect responses of tallgrass prairie butterflies to prescribed burning

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Abstract

Fire is an important tool in the conservation and restoration of tallgrass prairie ecosystems. We investigated how both the vegetation composition and butterfly community of tallgrass prairie remnants changed in relation to the elapsed time (in months) since prescribed fire. Butterfly richness and butterfly abundance were positively correlated with the time since burn. Habitat-specialist butterfly richness recovery time was greater than 70 months post-fire and habitat-specialist butterfly abundance recovery time was approximately 50 months post-fire. Thus, recovery times for butterfly populations after prescribed fires in our study were potentially longer than those previously reported. We used Path Analysis to evaluate the relative contributions of the direct effect of time since fire and the indirect effects of time since fire through changes in vegetation composition on butterfly abundance. Path models highlighted the importance of the indirect effects of fire on habitat features, such as increases in the cover of bare ground. Because fire return intervals on managed prairie remnants are often less than 5 years, information on recovery times for habitat-specialist insect species are of great importance.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for this project was provided by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the State Wildlife Grants Program (04-8348-04). We would like to thank S. Moats from the The Nature Conservancy, B. Zales and D. Zales and B. Knapp and C. Knapp for their valuable assistance with this project. J. Miller, B. Wilsey, and J. Davis provided helpful reviews and comments, as did anonymous reviewers. D. Russell provided assistance with data analysis. We would also like to thank field assistants A. Hagert and J. Davis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Iowa State University, 339 Science II, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Jennifer A. Vogel

  2. U.S. Geological Survey, Iowa Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, 339 Science II, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Rolf R. Koford

  3. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, 253 Bessey, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Diane M. Debinski

Authors
  1. Jennifer A. Vogel
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  2. Rolf R. Koford
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  3. Diane M. Debinski
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jennifer A. Vogel.

Appendices

Appendix A

See Table 4.

Table 4 List of all butterfly species found in study area during 2004 and 2005
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Appendix B

See Table 5.

Table 5 Burn history and area of Loess Hills, Iowa management units
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Vogel, J.A., Koford, R.R. & Debinski, D.M. Direct and indirect responses of tallgrass prairie butterflies to prescribed burning. J Insect Conserv 14, 663–677 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-010-9295-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-010-9295-1

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