Mission blue butterfly

Mission blue butterfly
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Lycaenidae
Subfamily:	Danainae
Genus:	Icaricia
Species:	Icarioides missionensis
Binomial name
Icaricia missionensis Hovanitz, 1937

The Mission blue butterfly is a federally endangered butterfly species that is native to the San Francisco Bay Area. Its binomial name is Icaricia missionensis, however the species used to be classified as a subspecies in the genus Plebejus. The Mission blue is classified as a subspecies of Boisduval's Blue (formerly Plebejus (Plebius)icarioides, now Icaricia icarioides), the nomenclature for the Mission blue as late as 2000 was Plebejus (Plebius) icarioides missionensis. It is still a subspecies of Boisduval's Blue.

Description

The endangered Mission blue is about the size of a quarter (21-33mm) with even smaller larvae which are very rarely seen.

Evolution

Butterflies first dispersed through North America at a time when South America still touched Africa and Europe was still attached to the northern part of the North American continent. It was this geographic setup that allowed butterflies to spread throughout the world. Butterflies likely descended down an evolutionary tree that followed a path from lamp shells to bryozoans to mollusks to segmented worms and then, eventually, butterflies. The order Lepidoptera may be the most recently evolved of all insect orders, except for fleas. The family that contains the Mission blue, Lycaenidae, is divided into three sub families. Those include Theolinae (hair-streaks), Lycaeninae (coppers), and Icaricia (blues), which includes the Mission blue. The Theolinae evolved in a tropical climate while the Lycaenidae and Icaricia evolved in a temperate climate zone. The genus Icaricia is host to 12 species. They are, I. icarioides, I. evius, I. moroensis, I. missionensis, I. padalis, I. pheres, I. ardea, I. lycea, I. bucholzi, I. pembina, I. blackmorel, and I. montis. Genus Icaricia was introduced in a 1944 paper by Vladimir Nabokov. The paper, Notes on the morphology of the genus Lycæides (Lycænidæ, Lepidoptera), was published in the Sep.-Dec. issue of Psyche--A Journal of Entomology and described two new genra, including Icaricia the other one was Plebulina.

Appearance

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'The brownish-colored female Mission blue butterfly.

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The iridescent blue male Mission blue butterfly.

The mission blue is a small Lycaenidae or gossamer-winged butterfly. Its wingspan is around 1 to 1.5 inches. The top wing, in mission blue males, is iridescent blue and lavender. The margins of the upper wing are black and sport "long, white, hair-like scales." The male butterfly also has small circular gray spots in the submargins on the ventral surface of the whitish ventral wing surface. In the post-median and submedian areas of the ventral surface black spots mark the upper and lower wing. The male body is a dark-blue/brown color.

The female mission blue have a dark brown upper wing that are marked with blue basal areas. The margins of the wing fringe are very similar to those on the male of the species. The underside of the wing on the female butterfly are gray with a dot pattern that is, again similar to that on the male.

Life cycle

Each year marks the birth of a new generation of Mission blues, as only one generation exists per year. The butterfly lays its eggs on the leaves, buds and seed pods of L. albifrons, Lupinus formosus and Lupinus variicolor. The eggs are usually laid on the dorsal side of new lupine leaves. Eggs generally hatch within six to ten days and the first and second instar larvae feed on the mesophyll of the lupine plants. The caterpillars, extremely small, feed for a short time and then crawl to the plant base where they enter a dormant state, known as diapause, until the late winter or the following spring. Diapause usually begins about three weeks after eclosion and begins about the same time as the host plant shifts its energy to flower and seed production. When the caterpillar comes out of its diapause and begins feeding, it occasionally sheds its skin to accomodate its growth.

As the larvae feed and grow native ants may gather and indicate the precense of larger Mission blue larvae. The ants will often stand on the caterpillar and tap it with their antennae. In response the caterpillar secretes honeydew. The ants eat honeydew and in return it is likely, through this symbiotic relationship, that the ants ward of predators. Once the caterpillar is full grown it leaves the larval stage and enters the pupal stage of development. The full grown caterpillar forms a chrysalis after securing themselves to a surface which is generally a lupine stem or leaf. They shed their outer skin, revealing their chrysalid. This stage lasts about ten days while the adult butterfly develops within the chrysalid. The butterfly can be sighted as early as late March in places like the summit of San Bruno Mountain or the Twin Peaks. They persist well into June when they will be seen perched on a lupine plant or feeding on coastal buckwheat flowers. Day to day for the adult butterfly is mostly spent foraging for nectar, flying, mating and for the females, laying eggs. Nearly equal time is spent between perching, feeding and flying. The adult Mission blue lives approximately one week, during this time the females lay the eggs on the host plant. The complete Mission blue buttefly life cycle lasts one year.

Diet

The larvae will only feed on the leaves of the three host lupine plants, L. albifrons, L. formosus, and L. variicolor native to their habitat. The plants are necessary for survival for the Mission blue. Thus, the butterfly's fate is closely tied to that of the three species of lupine as the plants provide food and shelter for the butterfly in its larval stage. The adult Mission blue drinks the nectar of a variety of flowers, many in the sunflower family, using its long proboscis which extends from the underside of its head.

Predators

In the 1983 study, "Six Ecological Studies of Endangered Butterflies," R.A. Arnold found that about 35% of eggs collected in the field were being parasitized by an unknown encryrtid wasp. Other parasitic Hymenoptera have been taken from the eggs of various Icarioides species. As far as predator-prey relationships, rodents are probably the primary predator of both the larvae and pupae.

Habitat

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The silver lupine, Lupinus albifrons.

I. i. missionensis is federally endangered and found in only a few select locations. Their habitat is restricted to the San Francisco Bay Area, specifically the Twin Peaks area in San Francisco County, Fort Baker, a former military installation managed by the National Park Service, in Marin County, the San Bruno Mountain area in San Mateo County and Skyline Ridges, also in San Mateo County. . It is San Bruno Mountain that hosts the largest population of mission blues, a butterfly that is commonly found around elevations of 700 feet. The coastal scrubland and grassland the mission blue requires is found only in and around the Golden Gate of

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The summer lupine, Lupinus formosus.

San Francisco. The butterfly depends solely on three species of perennial lupine for its reproduction, the Varicolored lupine, silver lupine and the summer lupine. The mission blue requires the lupine to lay their eggs and nourish the [larvae. Without these species the mission blue cannot reporduce and thus cannot survive.

Two of the areas inhabited by the Mission blue are within the confines of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Golden Gate staff are working to ease the invasive species problem that has helped reduce the Mission blue to the endangered species list. They work to remove non-native plants and replant the area with lupine seed along with continual monitoring of the butterfly and its host plant.

Much of the area that the Mission blue once inhabited has been destroyed. The coastal scrubland has seen unnatural human development in much of the region. The San Mateo County town of Brisbane lays in what was once likely the prime habitat for the butterfly. Near Brisbane an industrial park and rock quarry have proved damaging to the Mission blue habitat. Generally, the most negative impactor on Mission blue habitat is that of residential and industrial development. Aside from development other human activites have negatively impacted the butterfly's habitat. Those activities include cultivation and grazing as well as the oft human assisted abundance of invasive exotic species. Some of the more impactful exotics include the European grose and pompous grass. In the Golden Gate Recreation Area thoroughwort is a particular invasive species which is taking over habitat once occupied by the Mission blue's lifeblood, one of the three species of lupine. Of the threats facing the Mission blue, habitat loss due to human intervention and exotic, invasive species are the two most critical.

Residential and industrial development continually threaten Mission blue habitat. Such as the 1997-2001 seismic retrofitting of the Golden Gate Bridge. Despite costing and additional $1.2 million to comply to environmental standards the construction project still claimed about 1.5 hectares of butterfly habitat through "incidental take," an exception provided under California law. Through a type of habitat conservation popular since a 1983 amendment to the Endangered Species Act, the incidental take is offset by off-site mitigation and restoration. In this case the San Francisco Highway and Transportation District in cooperation with the National Park Service funded a $450,000 off site restoration plan. The main aspect of this plan was to establish about 8 ha of Mision blue habitat in the area of the bridge project.

The Mission blue butterfly was first collected in the Mission District of San Francisco in 1937. Today, there is a small colony on Twin Peaks, the species has also been found in Fort Baker, which is in Marin County. However, the majority of today's Mission blue colonies are found on San Bruno Mountain. Besides those on the mountain other colonies have been found in San Mateo County. Those colonies have been located at elevations of 690 to 1,180 feet. Some colonies have been found in the "fog belt" of the coastal mountain range. The Mission blue colonies in the area prefer coastal chaparral and coastal grasslands which are the predominate biomes where Mission blues are found.

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The varicolored lupine, Lupinus variicolor.

Habitat conservation

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has a number of habitat conservation programs in effect which includes lands traditionally habitated by the Mission blue butterfly. It was in 1984 a recovery plan, drawn up by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outlined the need to protect Mission blue habitat and to repair habitat damaged by urbanization, off highway vehicle traffic, and invasion by exotic, non-native plants. An example of the type of work being done by governmental and citizen agencies can be found in the Marin Headlands at Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In addition, regular wildfires has opened new habitat conservation opportunities as well as damaging existing ones.

Marin Headlands

The program in the Marin Headlands for Mission blue butterfly habitat protection aims to deal with one of the main problems facing the Mission blue. The Headlands area was once owned by the U.S. Army, from 1870 on the army used the area for forts, such as Fort Cronkhite, coastal batteries, such as the ones which protected the San Francisco Bay during WWII and missile sites, such as the 280 that occupied the area during the Cold War. While in the Marin Headlands the army planted a lot of trees, so many that today the non-native, invasive species that occupy the headlands threaten the habitat of such species as the Mission blue. The habitat protection program seeks to root out these species from selected areas of the Marin Headlands. Some of the species that have now become native to the area and threaten the habitat of the endangered Mission blue include, Monterey cypress, Monterey pine and Blackwood acacia. The Mission Blue Butterfly UserFee Project in the headlands will try to remove these species and revegetate the area with native coastal prairie plants.

San Bruno Mountain

Fog coming off of San Bruno Mountain.

Another major conservation effort is underway at San Bruno Mountain. A large area of Mission blue habitat has been protected under the auspices of the USFWS. In all, the San Bruno Mountain habitat conservation program has protected over 3,500 acres of habitat since 1983. San Bruno Mountain was the site of the nation's first Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), intended to protect the habitat of the Mission blue. However HCPs remain controversial.

The controversey over HCPs lie in their implementation. The San Bruno HCP came about in 1982, by that year locals had created San Bruno Mountain State and County Park, which held 1,950 acres of the 3,600 on the mountain, in order to protect the habitat of the Mission blue butterfly. Then, the butterfly began to turn up on private land. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formed a committee with landowners, developers, local governments, the California Department of Fish and Game and others. They crafted the first HCP in 1982 "to address problems caused by the presence of endangered butterflies on San Bruno Mountain." HCPs do not include any independent scientific review, thus none exists. The plan became the model for the 1983 amendment to the Endangered Species Act.

An artist rendering of a Mission blue perched upon lupine.

HCPs work like this. In exchange for permission to build over the tope of the prime habitat of two California endangered butterflies, the Mission blue and the San Bruno elfin butterfly, landowners agreed to measures to improve the prospects for the species' survival in other locations. This particular HCP allowed the development of 368 acres to 828 acres. Property owners who located in this area were required to offer land and funds to conserve and improve habitat in other locales around San Bruno Mountain. Property holders are also assessed for a Habitat Conservation Trust Fund which pays for species monitoring, alien plant removal and other tasks on the "donated" land slated for habitat. One such area on San Bruno Mountain was along the northeast ridge. There, a residential community was built over prime Mission blue habitat, a habitat that was supposed to be restored on the saddle of the mountain. However, the mountain's saddle is colder, damper and windier. On top of this, the saddle is overgrown with an invasive species, gorse, while the Mission blue requires lupine as its host plant. The environmental consulting firm, Thomas Reid Associates (TRA) crafted the plan and work to carry out the HCPs biological program and monitors the results. In addition, they have conducted the biological studies and environmental impact studies required under the HCP. TRA works with others to stop exotic plant invasions on butterfly habitat and began to undertake the daunting task of replacing the gorse infested saddle with lupine for the butterflies to relocate to. The project started in 1985. Gorse is a hardy plant that can reach heights of 20 feet with deep root systems. TRA tried multiple methods to destroy the invasive species, including herbicides and burning. By April the unfazed gorse bloomed a bright yellow. In 2001, 16 years after the project began, 100 acres of 330 original-acres remained covered in gorse. Though no one really knew if butterflies would even relocate the Mission blue has since moved into 15 quarter acre parcels on the mountain's saddle.

San Bruno Mountain, past a sprawling town.

The Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office is in charge of the plats under conservation at San Bruno Mountain and Parkside Homes. Parkside Homes is the newest habitat conservation plan or agreement and involves a twenty five acre residential community in South San Francisco. The area is home to non-native and native species which include lupines, Sedum, and Viola. The permit was issued in 1996.

The original conservation permit for San Bruno Mountain was issued in 1983 and encompassed 3,500 acres of mixed use land in San Mateo County. The Mission blue is among other endangered species in the 1983 parcel of land. Other animals include the San Bruno elfin butterfly, and the San Francisco garter snake. At the end of 1985 another 203 acres of land came under the auspices of the Sacramento office. The area, known as "South Slope" is another mixed use area. Three other amendments to the San Bruno Mountain conservation agreement added 10, 19, and 227 acres 1985, 1986 and 1990, respectively.

Fort Baker

Abandoned buildings at Fort Baker are dwarfed by the Golden Gate Bridge.

Fort Baker is an abandoned base formerly occupied by the U.S. Army, it is near the city of Sausalito, California. The military announced the post's closure in 1995. By 2001 it had been ceded to the National Park Service.

An 8.25 acre area of non-native Monterey pine and tea trees are invading part of a habitat at Fort Baker. The Fort Baker area is a "top vegetation and wildlife management priority" for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GOGA). As part of the mission to protect Mission Blue habitat the project will seek to physically remove and/or contain those species in areas within or adjacent to the "host plant" L. albifrons. Upon completion the area will be completely invasive-tree free.

A pitched legal battle was waged for years over the fate of some of the Fort Baker lands, the players: the city of Sausalito, California and the National Park Service. Sausalito and the National Park Service go back in legal battles several years but they also work together at times, sometimes to the benefit of one party or the other, as U.S. Department of Interior appropriations will reveal. In 1999 the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for FY 1999 made a "general provisions" dealing with the city of Sausalito and the Deptarment of Interior. Basically stating that the NPS owned land at Fort Baker was property tax exempt and exempt from any kind of special assessment from the state of California, county of Marin, or city of Sausalito.

The legal battle ensued when the National Park Service announced plans to finally allow a development group to build a large, long-awaited hotel/conference center complex on the remains of Fort Baker. The NPS first announced their intention to develop Fort Baker in 1980's Golden Gate National Recreation Area General Management Plan which proclaimed that Fort Baker would become a conference center. The group, Fort Baker Retreat Group LLC - is an amalgam of Passport Resorts, a hotel management company; Equity Community Builders, the development manager; and Ajax Capital, a financial partner. Talk about development at the site, managed by the Park Service, first began in earnest in 1998. By 2001 the city of Sausalito had filed suit to force an injunction against the Park Service's plan to go ahead with the project. The suit lingered in court for several years. The essential quarrel was over the size of the project which looked to be approaching the maximum size of 350 rooms as adopted in the June 2000

A Mission blue butterfly (I. missionensis) perched.

original Fort Baker Plan. The suit alleged, however, that the NPS violated numerous environmental laws during the development of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project. The EIS was completed in 1999 and included the NPS' preferred alternative to the hotel/conference center. The alternative, 42 acres of habitat, 23 specifically for the Mission blue butterfly, to be preserved, improved or repaired. Sausalito's 2001 suit also alleged that the EIS was "deficient."

It wasn't until Oct. 20, 2004 that a judgement was handed down in the case. In City of Sausalito v. O'Neill the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that Sausalito did have standing to sue the NPS for an injunction to halt the hotel project at Fort Baker.

The entire affair did not get settled until 2005 when the city and the Park Service came to an agreement which resulted in the project being trimmed down to a 144-room hotel complex. The settlement actually capped the room capacity at a higher 225.

Twin Peaks

San Francisco from Twin Peaks.

The Twin Peaks, icons of the San Francisco Bay Area, are also home to a reported population of Mission blue butterflies. The enrtire area is a park managed by the San Francisco Recreation & Park Department (SFRPD). The park contains 31 acres of what the Park Department terms "Natural Areas." This area is most of the park minus roads, viewpoints and the City Fire Department reservior. The natural areas contain significant resources for preservation. They include some of the largest areas of coastal scrub and prairie that remains within the city of San Francisco. These, being the preferred habitat of the Mission blue, are areas that support and provide habitat for the butterfly. Twin Peaks receives heavy recreational use because of its picturesque view of the city. Twin Peaks supports a wide array of habitat types, from mixed forest to coastal scrub. Amongst the coastal scrub and prairies are silver bush lupine plants (L. albifrons) which support the colonies of endangered Mission blues.

The Mission blue was first reported in Twin Peaks in 1979, since then SFRPD staff confirmed their continued presence in 2000 and 2001. Protocols for monitoring include egg surveys on lupine plants at regular time intervals throughout the spring. In 2000, surveys found 56 eggs on 115 plants in the southern part of Twin Peaks. May 2001 surveys reconfirmed the original finding, albeit in smaller numbers. That year 14 eggs were found on 15 silver bush lupine plants.

In February 2006 the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department released its "Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan." The plan outlines site specific recommendations for the 800+ acres in 30+ San Francisco parks designated Significant Natural Resource Areas. The site specific plan for Twin Peaks covers the issue of habitat

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A Mission blue butterfly.

conservation for the Mission blue. The plan recommends that priority be given to "maintaining the habitat necessary for mission blue butterflies, especially the host plant (silver bush lupine)." The silver bush lupine is common in and around Twin Peaks. In addition the Management Plan recommended that the mission blue population at Twin Peaks]The Twin Peaks be monitored and the host plant populations should be augmented whenever possible.

Aside from the Mission blue the park at Twin peaks is home to over 20 other species that are threatened or endangered at a local, state or federal level. The Mission blue is the only federally endangered animal at Twin Peaks, however, the Bay checkerspot butterfly is a federally threatened species. Most of the other threatened species at Twin Peaks are of local concern only.

Fire rehabilitation

Popular thought is that the host plants, lupines, require periodic distubances in order to sucessfully reproduce. Many possible natural disturbances are actively worked against by humans, such as fire and landslides because areas are designed with a dual use purpose in mind, often for recreational use.

Solstice fire

The area where the Solstice fire occurred is under restoration.

In June 2004 the Solstice Fire burned near Sausalito, California. The fire started when an errant "international visitor" had a fire mishap while camping. This fire threatened historical buildings which a public-private partnership planned to turn into a conference center. The building was spared but a stand of non-native Monterey pines was not so lucky. The Monterey pine, a pesky invasive species that has become "naturalized," is continually encroaching on the coastal grasslands that the Mission blue butterfly prefers and requires. Over 250 trees were removed from the area after the fire, burnt remanants of what they once were. The charred trees were chipped and the chips utilized in an electric generation facility as well as on site to control cape ivy, another invasive species.

The area that was cut was seeded with native plants. Among them, purple needle grass, in fall 2004 and again in fall 2005 about one pound of purple needle grass seed was sowed directly on the burn site. 400 summer lupine seedlings were also planted, most were grown in nearby nurseries while some were collected in the Marin Headlands. Still, both plants are forced to compete with non-native Italian thistle and French broom.

Lateral fire

Invasive French broom has moved into the area of the Lateral fire burn.

The August 2004 "Lateral Fire" started, again, within Fort Baker, a half mile south of, also again, Sausalito, California. Besides threatening urban area, and historic buildings the fire threatened the habitat of the Mission blue. The fire happened within a 17-acre habitat resoration project and burned areas of the butterfly's host lupine plant, Lupinus albifrons. Mission blues lay their eggs on L. albifrons each year. The fire burned about 300 plants. The U.S. federal government responded per the National Fire Plan.

Control of non-native species trying to reinvade the area was cited as a key measure in protecting the lupines, essential to Mission blue survival. The non-native French broom and Italian thistle were among the culprits seeking to re-enter coastal grass and scrubland. It was French broom which required the most intensive work to prevent reemergence. Three types of treatments were implemented in the effort to control French broom:

• mulching with weed free rice straw
• flaming with handheld propane torch
• dislodging or cutting with a hula hoe

When these techniques were applied to seedlings within two months of germination they were 90% effective. French broom seed stores were vast and the treatments required multiple applications. A huge new wave of French broom seeds followed three serparate flaming treatments and a massive hand pulling of the invasive plant followed up the flame activity. The propane torches proved less successful against Italian thistle which was controlled utilizing mostly a hand pulling and herbicide combination. In an attempt to rehab the burned areas weed-free straw wattles and weed-free straw mulch to help with erosion control. Following the fire, monitoring was conducted and three findings were considered especially significant. First, about half of the area's lupines survived the fire and an increased number germinated after the fire. Interestingly enough, living Mission blue caterpillars were found on a number of burned lupine plants. According to the life cycle of the Mission blue, these eggs would have had to been laid before the fire. This would indicate that the butterflies, albeit in the early larval stages, survived the Lateral Fire.

Legal protection

The Mission blue butterfly was added to the Federal Endangered Species List in 1976, its protection falls under the jurisdiction of the federal Endangered Species Act. While the state of California has enacted an Endangered Species Act, it is quite specific about what affords its protection. Sec. 2062 of the California Endangered Species Act, under definitions, declares, "Endangered species" means a native species or subspecies of a bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile, or plant which is in serious danger of becoming extinct . . ." There is no provision for a state endangered listing for any insect. The Mission blue butterfly is not protected by state statute in California.

External links

• Mission Blue Butterfly at the Butterfly Conservation Initiative [1]
• Save our Species Poster from the EPA [2]
• San Bruno Mountain Watch
• New Effort To Save Creek In San Mateo County, CBS 5-SF, Oakland, Sept. 14, 2006.
• Mission Blue Butterfly Team, Marin County, California.
• Marin Conservation Corps
• Butterfly is safe, court rules, New York Times, May 15, 1985.
• Endangered Species Act of 1973 (PDF), 48 pages, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Overview of Amendments to the ESA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Flaws in habitat conservation plans threaten scores of species, Seattle Post Intelligencer investivagtive report, by Robert McClure and Lissa Stiffler.
• City of Sausalito v. O'Neill (PDF), 69 pages, Oct. 2004 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion.