Coastal Dunes in California
April 5, 2018 · Blog
Helping save a beach one insect at a time
Butterfly Pavilion studies how the restoration of California’s coastal dunes could help conserve populations of invertebrates .
In the early 1900’s developers used a grass called European beach grass to help stabilize the ever-shifting sand dunes so they could build closer to the ocean. At the time, it seemed like a great idea. But soon the beach grass grew out of control and took over, blanketing the coast in a sea of invasive plants! It changed more than the landscape; it also impacted the animals that called these dunes home.
Over the years the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) made a decision to restore the dunes around Eureka, California. This required hundreds of volunteers removing millions of plants year after year in order to successfully return the dunes back to their naturally-diverse state. As the native plants have returned, so have the animals, including threatened and endangered species! As with many conservation projects, some members of the community have raised concerns about the impact of removing the grasses. Why would you get rid of the lush grass and replace it with scrubby native plants? The main answer: diversity! In order to make sure this restoration is truly having a positive impact on the environment, the BLM agreed to bring in a team of experts from Butterfly Pavilion to decide which was better: restored or unrestored dunes. The Butterfly Pavilion research team has made many trips to these dunes to collect and identify the number and diversity of invertebrates (like beetles, bees, spiders, and butterflies) living on the restored dunes. It is important to protect the diversity of invertebrates on the dunes so that many different species can perform their diverse roles, such as pollination and decomposition, which keep the ecosystem healthy. By comparing the populations of invertebrates between the restored and unrestored sites, we can inform BLM about the vegetation and management practices that will promote healthy invertebrate life on the dunes!
