Connectivity for a complex life cycle: Conserving the Crystal skipper butterfly in a coastal urban environment

Species around the globe increasingly face multiple threats from disturbances such as urbanization and climate change. Not all threats can be directly addressed through local conservation actions. Instead, conservation may attempt to reduce or offset the effects of a larger threat (such as climate change) by managing local conditions (such as food availability).

We still know very little about whether and when these approaches should succeed. To address this problem, this research and conservation project investigates effects of urbanization, climate change, and habitat management on a rare butterfly, the Crystal skipper (Atrytonopsis quinteri). This small insect is endemic to 50 km of North Carolina barrier islands, where larvae and adults require distinct resources—host plants and nectar—that may be disconnected in an urban landscape.

All life stages also face risks from weather and climate stressors. This project aims to improve monitoring and management approaches for the Crystal skipper. In doing so, it provides broader insights into how conservation management may interact with climate in organisms with complex life cycles.

This project also provides integrative research and conservation training for a graduate student, undergraduate students, and early-career conservation professionals, and involves local stakeholders in monitoring and outreach.

The specific objectives of this project are to: (1) develop a rigorous, sustainable, and unbiased survey methodology to estimate skipper population size and trends, (2) evaluate the role of connectivity (ease of movement) between host plants and nectar plants in limiting skipper populations, (3) assess whether management can increase Crystal skipper populations and offset effects of climate change, and (4) implement adaptive, robust, and strategic improvements to the existing Crystal skipper conservation plan. This research combines modern technologies (unmanned aerial systems to detect patchy nectar resources), field surveys, and circuit theory to quantify how mobile organisms use resources in an urban matrix.

It also relates demographic rates to environmental and climate variables and constructs a mechanistic population model to test the effects of management interventions and weather/climate variation on skipper population growth. Finally, it combines results of research, monitoring, and stakeholder input to prioritize management actions and develop an adaptive monitoring program that will resolve critical uncertainties impeding Crystal skipper management.

This project is being supported via a joint program involving the Divisions of Environmental Biology and Integrative Organismal Systems and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.