Today a group of 22 students along with their professors took the VIP Tour of the Butterfly Conservatory.   They were amazed at how much regeneration has taken place in just 7 years since the project was founded.

A few days ago, the Butterfly Conservatory´s reseach team received the approval for publication of our most recent paper named: Butterflies diversity in a tropical rainforest gradient of Arenal, Costa Rica. This article will be published within the next two months by de scientific journal Brenesia of the Department of Natural History of the Costa Rican National Museum.

The objective of the paper was to determine differences in the butterflies community structure in three environments: Pristine zone (rainforest), border or buffer zone and pasture lands.  In the Arenal Area nowdays, is very common to find more and more areas in where deforestation is stoped but with very little or absent effort to recuperate the land, fortunately, once you are there seems like the rainforest intends to get back the land by extending itself. Since this optic it is important to determine if the biodiversity composition is trying to go back to the original or if is suffering some kind of alteration or blocking.

In our paper we used the rarefaction method (A kind of ecological standarization technique)  as well as  eveness and diversity index to explore differences in the biodiversity composition. We found that the buffer zone tends to have a butterfly diversity very similar to the pristine condition but with certain influence of the pasture lands, as a result the biodiversity becomes high in those areas under recuperation.

Best wishes from the Butterfly Conservatory.

On October 21st, 2008, proudly, we began our participation in the environmental education program of El Castillo, where the Butterfly Conservatory is located . This project started six months ago funded by the Office  of National Community Development of Costa Rica (DINADECO) and created in cooperation with the development associaction of El Castillo and the Rancho Margot.

During the last two months, the professional team of The Butterfly Conservatory has been preparing the activities program in coordination with Marisol Barquero (Project teacher) to develop within the next six months  with the intention to integrate the sustainability objectives of the community and local enterprises.

So far, this project is directed to the elementary school students, the next  year (starting on june, 2009) high school students will be part of it. The third year will include a program for parents and citizens of the area.

This stage of the project intends to give to the children a general view of the biodiversity of the area and the importance of natural resources in an area where the tourism and agriculture are the most important economical activities.

Let´s keep in touch.

Jonathan Herrera-Vásquez

Butterflies diseases in captivity conditions are a major topic. In Costa Rica, most of the breeders are not paying too much attention to the protocols for the diagnostic of tropical diseases on butterflies. There are no programs for monitoring the specimens raised in captivity or the influence of this ¨domestic¨ individuals on wild populations.

Since Oct, 05^th 2008 our laboratory started applying a protocol for the diagnostics of Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (Known as Oe), a protozoan that infects monarchs (Danaus spp.), usually transmitted from females to their offspring when the females scatter spores on the egg chorion and surface of milkweed leaves, the host plant of monarchs and queens, during ovispsition, the process of laying eggs. The spores are then ingested by the larvae. Once in the gut, the spores open and emerging sporozoites penetrate the gut wall and migrate to the hypoderm (the layer of cells that secrete the cuticle), where they undergo two phases of vegetative reproduction. After the caterpillar pupates, O. elektroscirrha starts reproducing sexually. Three days before the adults emerge, developing parasite spores can be seen through the pupal integument. The adult butterflies emerge covered with spores, mostly on their abdomens. Parasites do not continue to replicate on adult butterflies and spores must be eaten by larvae to cause new infections.

The idea is to establish this protocol in our facilities and then implement other techniques to determine diseases affecting captivity populations. We invite to the butterfly farmers of the area to join to this initiative and we encourage to our visitors to learn more about this topic by consulting with our laboratory personnel.

Regards

Biol. Jonathan Herrera

Technical Coordinator

Great news!

This year the International Butterfly Breeders Association (IBBA) Pre Convention Seminar will be held on site at the Butterfly Conservatory!

In addition to an in depth learning tour of operations at our facility, talks on Rearing Studies & Techniques, there will be a special night excursion for attracting and identifying incredible bugs as well as lava watching of one of the most active volcanos in the world, Arenal Volcano.

I’m totally excited about hosting this Seminar, and the preparation for it is certainly keeping us busy! 

Glenn

A great article about the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7597701.stm

Around 2pm on June 2nd a large eruption caused the crater on the SW side facing El Castillo to break off… a large amount of lava came tumbling down with lots of ash and smoke. Around 3pm some men from OVSICORI (the volcano monitoring group who just happened to be at the Observatory Lodge when it happened) came to Butterfly Conservatory doing a survey and asking what we saw, and about the level of ash fall.

We of course saw the eruption which caused the edge of the crater to fall, but it just looked like a large lava flow with lots of smoke, and then big clouds started forming rapidly due to the heat hiding the volcano. No ash fell in El Castillo because it almost immediately started raining from the steam produced, forcing the ash to the ground before reaching us.

Large clouds of steam are still forming all down the SW side of the volcano so can not see the level of activity right now. Anyway, no damage done, just a good show and life continues as usual here in paradise.

Glenn

After about 4 days of work and 3 weeks of waiting for approval the WordPress based, newly redesigned Butterfly Conservatory web site is finally live! I’m excited about the redesign and new blogging capabilities that we now have. Expect a lot of pretty butterfly pictures, videos, and stories from the butterfly life! Stay tuned!