Butterfly Community and Behavioral Responses to Restored Disturbance Regimes

Abstract

Grassland organisms evolved alongside the interaction of fire and grazing, but modern management often decouples these disturbances. In order to analyze the effects of reintroducing this interaction, we implemented four treatments. Two of these treatments were variations of patch-burn grazing, one was modified rest-rotation grazing, and one was season-long grazing. We chose to monitor the butterfly response to these treatments because butterflies have short generations, require a wide variety of resources, and are easily identifiable as adults. We quantified both the butterfly community and the behavioral time budgets of two species. We found that the butterfly community is more species-rich and abundant in treatments including fire than in treatments without fire. We found no difference in time budgets between treatments. Overall, we suggest that managers implement a carefully-planned patch-burn grazing regime in order to support grassland butterflies and other organisms.