Why Honey bees aren’t the buzz

*Guest post by Shannon Underwood, a student in Marc's 'Causes and Consequences of Diversity' class.

When you think “Save the Bees”, most likely a Honeybee comes to mind – this is primarily because they have become the flagship species for the current bee crisis. Although responsible for bringing the much-needed attention to the impact humans are having on our bee populations, they greatly misdirect the public, making a large number of people significantly less aware of the other 4,000 diverse bee species we have in North America¹⁴ – our wild (native) bees: the ones we should be more concerned about.

Fig 1. Adapted from Wilson, Forister, and Carril 2017. Above figure shows the total amount of bee species survey-participants thought were in the United States.

Pollinators are responsible for supporting 35% of the global agricultural landscapes¹⁵. Outside of agriculture, 80-95% of the native flowering plants that are found in natural ecosystems rely on animal pollinators for reproduction¹¹. Pollination is a fundamental ecosystem service provided by a variety of animals, however most efficiently by wild bees. The unique evolutionary histories that bees share with native plants has resulted in the vast diversity of traits seen among them (Photo 1), and communities with greater bee diversity have shown to be more productive than communities with poorer diversity¹² - largely because of greater resource partitioning by the wild bees. Their foraging preferences, differences in body shapes and sizes, as well as some species ability to perform a more effective technique of pollination called buzz pollination, make wild bees the most important group of pollinators.

 

 Photo 1: Shows the different body shapes and sizes of some wild bees. This rich diversity reflects their unique coevolution with plants.

Bees are facing substantial reductions in their diversity, range and abundances worldwide¹. In North America, there are currently 12 wild bee species that are recognized as ‘threatened’ under the IUCN Red-list. Staggeringly, all 12 of these species belong to the genus Bombus- commonly referred to as the Bumblebee. Over that last 20 years, Bumblebees have become one of the largest victims of decline in North America - with four species that faced a 23-87% shrinkage in their geographic range, and a precipitous 96% reduction in their abundance². A leading cause of the declines in wild bee populations has been largely attributed to land-use change¹. While the human population continues to expand, accumulating amounts of their natural habitat is lost and replaced with agricultural and urban landscapes. The fragmented habitats that remain often have decreased accessibility to green spaces and poorer nesting opportunities for bees. Making it harder for them to grab a foothold in the community – these human-added stressors put our wild bees at a much greater risk for extinction.

Fig 3. Adapted from Szabo et al. 2012. Shows the decline in the occurrence of B. affinis (A), B. terricola (B), B. pensylvanicus (C), and all bumblebee species (D) between the years of 1980-1990 (green) and 2000-2010 (blue).

The second most prominent impact on wild bee abundance and diversity has been greatly linked to invasive species like the common Western Honey bee¹. The Honeybee, native to the Old World region, has become an invasive species in all areas outside of its origin³. Their uniquely large colonies and hive formation make them the most valuable pollinator to humans in agriculture management. Wild bee health and productivity is often reduced in agricultural landscapes because of the high use of pesticides and lower foraging opportunities⁷. To compensate for this, the honeybee has become a highly used technique worldwide because they can be easily transported to a field for crop pollination- many policies and conservation efforts tend to primarily focus on the protection of such managed bee species because of this. But the positive attention that the honeybee receives publicly leaves many people unaware that it is even invasive in North America.

Honeybees are generalists – a common characteristic for many invasive species⁸. They can forage up to 2-3km outside of their hive and will recruit other colony-workers once a good food source is found, in order to maximize their foraging products³. Because of their large numbers, they can greatly increase the foraging competition for our already-threatened wild bee species. Honeybees are also prone to several diseases and can increase the risk of transmission to our wild bee populations³. Although the honeybee is valuable in agricultural pollination for its cost and time efficiency, in many cases wild pollinators are better at pollinating than the honeybee alone (Fig. 4). The honeybee lacks the ability to perform buzz pollination - the amount of pollen a queen Bumblebee can deposit to a blueberry flower in a single visit would require a honeybee to visit the same flower 4 times⁹. These small and diverse organisms are thus extremely important for sustaining healthy natural ecosystems, and so it becomes increasingly significant that we find ways to support their abundance and diversity during this new human-dominated era.

Fig. 4. Adapted from Garibaldi et al. 2013. The figure shows that wild insects increased reproduction (y-axis) in all crops examined than the honeybee alone.

Cities are commonly viewed as human-dominated landscapes that are inhabitable for wildlife. However, some people argue that cities may actually be ecologically valuable to certain types of species like our insect-pollinators⁷. Cities often have less pesticide than the surrounding rural landscapes⁷, and the commonly used green infrastructures like green roofs, gardens, and parks can be extremely valuable to pollinators by offering more abundant and diverse foraging opportunities. Green infrastructure in cities is also recognized as being important for decreasing flight times and even providing habitat for certain species⁴. Many beekeepers highlight that one of the best things anyone can do to support wild bees is to transform their property into a bee sanctuary. Plant pollinator-friendly gardens and even incorporate bee hotels into your backyard as a way to offer wild bees more opportunities in developed areas. You can also take part in projects like “Bees In My Backyard”  and “Bumble Bee watch”  to help conservationists collect information on our current bee populations. More importantly, though, just becoming educated about the threats to our wild bees and spreading awareness to the people around you is a crucial step towards refocusing our pollinator conservation efforts, and bringing the attention away from the honeybee and rightfully onto our wild bees.

Literature cited

1.     Brown, Mark J. F., and Robert J. Paxton. 2009. “The Conservation of Bees: A Global Perspective.” Apidologie 40(3): 410–16.

2.     Cameron, Sydney A. et al. 2011. “Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(2): 662–67.

3.     Colla, Sheila R., and J. Scott MacIvor. 2017. “Questioning Public Perception, Conservation Policy, and Recovery Actions for Honeybees in North America.” Conservation Biology 31(5): 1202–4.

4.     Dylewski, Łukasz, Łukasz Maćkowiak, and Weronika Banaszak‐Cibicka. 2019. “Are All Urban Green Spaces a Favourable Habitat for Pollinator Communities? Bees, Butterflies and Hoverflies in Different Urban Green Areas.” Ecological Entomology 44(5): 678–89.

5.     Garibaldi, Lucas A. et al. 2013. “Wild Pollinators Enhance Fruit Set of Crops Regardless of Honey Bee Abundance.” Science 339(6127): 1608–11.

6.     Graham, Kelsey K. “Beyond Honey Bees: Wild Bees Are Also Key Pollinators, and Some Species Are Disappearing.” The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/beyond-honey-bees-wild-bees-are-also-key-pollinators-and-some-species-are-disappearing-89214 (February 20, 2020).

7.     Hall, Damon M. et al. 2017. “The city as a refuge for insect pollinators.” Conservation Biology 31(1): 24–29.

8.     “Invasive Species | U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit.” https://toolkit.climate.gov/topics/ecosystem-vulnerability/invasive-species (February 21, 2020).

9.     Javorek, S. K., K. E. Mackenzie, and S. P. Vander Kloet. 2002. “Comparative Pollination Effectiveness Among Bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) on Lowbush Blueberry (Ericaceae: Vaccinium Angustifolium).” Annals of the Entomological Society of America 95(3): 345–51.

10.  Matias, Denise Margaret S. et al. 2017. “A Review of Ecosystem Service Benefits from Wild Bees across Social Contexts.” Ambio 46(4): 456–67.

11.  Ollerton J, Winfree R, Tarrant S: How many flowering plants are pollinated by animals? Oikos 2011, 120(3):321-326.

12.  Rogers, Shelley R., David R. Tarpy, and Hannah J. Burrack. 2014. “Bee Species Diversity Enhances Productivity and Stability in a Perennial Crop.” PLOS ONE 9(5): e97307.

13.  Szabo, Nora D. et al. 2012. “Do Pathogen Spillover, Pesticide Use, or Habitat Loss Explain Recent North American Bumblebee Declines?” Conservation Letters 5(3): 232–39.

14.  “The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.” IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. https://www.iucnredlist.org/en (February 20, 2020).

15.  “What Are Pollinators and Why Do We Need Them? (Center for Pollinator Research).” Center for Pollinator Research (Penn State University). https://ento.psu.edu/pollinators/resources-and-outreach/what-are-pollinators-and-why-do-we-need-them (February 21, 2020).

16.  “Why bees matter.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2018. http://www.fao.org/3/I9527EN/i9527en.PDF

17.  Wilson, Joseph S., Matthew L. Forister, and Olivia Messinger Carril. 2017. “Interest Exceeds Understanding in Public Support of Bee Conservation.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 15(8): 460–66.

The “man” in mangroves: How does the Anthropocene impact biodiversity in these ecosystems?

 *This post is by Nina Adamo, a student in Marc's 'Causes and COnsequences of Diversity' class.

Mangroves are among the most biologically important forest ecosystems on Earth, found in the intertidal zone between land and sea along tropical and subtropical coasts around the world.⁷ Mangrove ecosystems provide habitat for a wide range of terrestrial as well as aquatic organisms including plants, fish, mollusks, birds, reptiles, and crustaceans, among many others.¹

Mangroves also serve as nursery habitats for various fish and crab species found in coastal regions, as mangroves provide high abundances of food and shelter for developing wildlife living in coastal regions.⁷ Since many species use mangroves as nursery grounds, fish diversity and abundance in neighbouring coastal ecosystems has been positively linked to the proximity of mangrove areas, suggesting that mangrove habitat is critical in supporting biodiversity in surrounding coastal ecosystems.⁵

Figure 1: Many species such as fish and crustaceans use mangroves as a nursery site for their young, where shelter from predators and food is abundant.⁹

Along with supporting a wide range of biodiversity along coastal ecosystems, mangroves also provide many essential ecosystem services to humans. Some of these societal benefits include natural resources such as fish and timber, coastal protection from storms, and assisting in mitigating climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it.¹¹

Despite the critical role mangroves play in supporting coastal biodiversity and providing ecosystem services to society, mangroves have been disappearing globally at an alarming rate of 1-2% per year due to anthropogenic activities and accelerated global climate change.⁴ The main threats to these ecosystems are rising sea levels causing coastal erosion, environmental condition changes due to climate change, land-use changes, deforestation, and overexploitation of natural resources.⁴ This has led to the loss of about 50% of mangrove coverage across the globe since 1950.¹⁰

In recent years, there have been a great number of studies that have explored the impacts of anthropogenic activities and climate change on the biodiversity of vegetation, benthic meiofauna, and benthic fauna found in mangrove ecosystems.

Figure 2: A stilt mangrove tree in a mangrove forest coastal ecosystem on an island in East Kalimantan, Indonesia.⁸

In the Sundarbans, which is the world’s largest remaining natural mangrove ecosystem located on the border of Bangladesh and India, there has been a homogenization of tree species composition over the span of 28 years from the 1980s to the 2010s.¹⁰ In other words, the largest remaining mangrove ecosystem has experienced a loss in community biodiversity of mangrove plant species over time due to anthropogenic activities and the environmental impact of climate change.

The loss of biodiversity in ecosystems is a crucial issue because higher biodiversity in most ecosystems typically leads to higher ecosystem functioning, so if biodiversity is lost through stressors such as habitat loss or extreme environmental conditions such as those produced through global climate change, it could have severe impacts on the diversity of an ecosystem and hence the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole.²

The biodiversity of benthic meiofauna, which are very small invertebrates that live in the bottom of aquatic mangrove ecosystems, are also negatively impacted by anthropogenic disturbances. In a comparison study of disturbed and undisturbed mangrove areas, disturbed areas displayed a 20% loss of benthic meiofauna biodiversity compared to undisturbed mangrove areas.² Since many juvenile fish species that use mangrove ecosystems as nursery grounds rely heavily on meiofauna for food, this loss of biodiversity through anthropogenic causes could cause a reduction in ecosystem functioning not only within mangrove communities but in surrounding coastal ecosystems as well.²

A similar observation is also found with the biodiversity of benthic fauna in mangrove ecosystems in the Philippines, where protected mangrove ecosystems have significantly higher diversity and abundance of crab species than reforested mangrove ecosystems that have been disturbed by humans.¹ This suggests that environmental factors influenced by climate change and human influences in mangrove ecosystems can have a negative impact on the biodiversity of benthic fauna, one of the most dominant groups in these systems, which could impair the overall functioning of the ecosystem.¹

With the increasing loss of mangrove habitat and the biodiversity within it across the globe due to anthropogenic activities and climate change, it is essential that humans intervene with utilizing other paradigms such as the flagship species paradigm to increase mangrove conservation and policies to protect mangrove habitat,¹¹ well-researched and well-managed mangrove planting restoration,⁶ and more research on innovative manmade artificial mangroves that may help to restore these ecosystems.³

Figure 3: Locations of the various megafauna found in mangroves (locations of mangrove areas shown in green) around the globe, with the orange representing terrestrial and the blue representing aquatic megafauna. Some examples of megafauna found in mangroves (from top-left to bottom-left in a clockwise direction) include the Key deer, Manatee, Sailfin lizard, Sawfish, Three-toed sloth, Spotted deer, Bengal tiger, Otter, Green turtle, Crocodile, and the Proboscis monkey.¹¹

The focus of much of the recent research on mangrove conservation has utilized an ecosystem services approach, where the benefits that mangroves provide to humans is stressed as an incentive for conservation.¹¹ For this reason, most of the research has been focused on smaller benthic invertebrates such as crabs and shrimp, rather than larger charismatic megafauna that are found in mangroves around the world such as sloths, Bengal tigers, green turtles, and proboscis monkeys.¹¹

Conservation awareness of mangrove ecosystems could be improved by using the flagship species paradigm which uses larger charismatic species found in mangrove ecosystems in marketing campaigns that would protect the entire ecosystem in which they are found. Since charismatic megafauna have been observed in mangrove habitats across the globe, using the flagship species paradigm in conjunction with the ecosystem services paradigm could increase public awareness of the threats facing these extremely diverse and productive ecosystems.¹¹

Conserving mangrove ecosystems around the world is important as these ecosystems provide ecosystem services to human society and play a critical role in supporting biodiversity within mangrove systems and in neighbouring coastal systems. With the increasing threat of anthropogenic activities and global climate change, the conservation and protection of mangroves is essential to reduce the decline in ecosystem functioning and biodiversity in these ecologically important ecosystems that many animals and humans alike rely on in order to live productive and successful lives.

References

1.     Bandibas, M. B., & Hilomen, V. V. (2016). Crab biodiversity under different management schemes of mangrove ecosystems. Global Journal of Environmental Science and Management, 2(1), 19–30. https://doi.org/10.7508/gjesm.2016.01.003

2.     Carugati, L., Gatto, B., Rastelli, E., Lo Martire, M., Coral, C., Greco, S., & Danovaro, R. (2018). Impact of mangrove forests degradation on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31683-0

3.     Florida Atlantic University. (2018). Humanmade mangroves could get to the “root” of the problem for threats to coastal areas. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 20, 2020, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180829115627.htm

4.     Hapsari, K. A., Jennerjahn, T. C., Lukas, M. C., Karius, V., & Behling, H. (2019). Intertwined effects of climate and land use change on environmental dynamics and carbon accumulation in a mangrove-fringed coastal lagoon in Java, Indonesia. Global Change Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14926

5.     Henderson, C. J., Gilby, B. L., Schlacher, T. A., Connolly, R. M., Sheaves, M., Flint, N., Borland, H. P., & Olds, A. D. (2019). Contrasting effects of mangroves and armoured shorelines on fish assemblages in tropical estuarine seascapes. Ices Journal of Marine Science, 76(4), 1052–1061. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsz007

6.     Kodikara, K. A. S., Mukherjee, N., Jayatissa, L. P., Dahdouh‐Guebas, F., & Koedam, N. (2017). Have mangrove restoration projects worked? An in-depth study in Sri Lanka. Restoration Ecology, 25(5), 705–716. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.12492

7.     Nagelkerken, I., Blaber, S. J. M., Bouillon, S., Green, P., Haywood, M., Kirton, L. G., Meynecke, J.-O., Pawlik, J., Penrose, H. M., Sasekumar, A., & Somerfield, P. J. (2008). The habitat function of mangroves for terrestrial and marine fauna: A review. Aquatic Botany, 89(2), 155–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquabot.2007.12.007

8.     Rante, A. (2019, December 12). A stilt mangrove tree in a protected area on Semama Island in East Kalimantan. Supertrees: Meet Indonesia’s mangrove, the tree that stores carbon. [Image].Vox. Retrieved February 20, 2020 from https://www.vox.com/2019/12/12/21009910/climate-change-indonesia-mangroves-palm-oil-shrimp-negative-emissions-blue-carbon

9.     Rante, A. (2019, December 12). In the water lapping at mangrove roots, young fish and plankton take refuge from predators. Supertrees: Meet Indonesia’s mangrove, the tree that stores carbon. [Image].Vox. Retrieved February 20, 2020 from https://www.vox.com/2019/12/12/21009910/climate-change-indonesia-mangroves-palm-oil-shrimp-negative-emissions-blue-carbon

10.  Sarker, S. K., Matthiopoulos, J., Mitchell, S. N., Ahmed, Z. U., Mamun, Md. B. A., & Reeve, R. (2019). 1980s–2010s: The world’s largest mangrove ecosystem is becoming homogeneous. Biological Conservation, 236, 79–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.05.011

11.  Thompson, B. S., & Rog, S. M. (2019). Beyond ecosystem services: Using charismatic megafauna as flagship species for mangrove forest conservation. Environmental Science & Policy, 102, 9–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.09.009

Life isn't all Rainbows and Butterflies...

Guest post by Carolyn Thickett, MSc. Candidate at the University of Toronto-Scarborough

Life isn't all Rainbows and Butterflies...

… especially in an age of extreme habitat loss, chemical pollution, invasions by alien species and climate change. All of these pressures are contributing to the dramatic decline of insects currently being observed all around the world.

In Canada, the general public is responding by trying to contribute their time and knowledge in any way that they can. Citizen Science programs encourage people with little or no previous experience to participate by working with staff from one of the conservation areas in the Greater Toronto Area. These programs are aimed at engaging the general public in conservation efforts for the purpose of education, but with the added benefit of reducing the cost of expensive conservation work.

Many more events are happening out of the public eye, not advertised, even held in secret. I attended one such event this past June, held in an undisclosed location, in Eastern Ontario. This was an invitation-only event, attended by a consortium of people concerned about the status of the Mottled Duskywing Butterfly in Ontario, spearheaded by butterfly enthusiast Jessica Linton.

Mottled Duskywing Butterfly. Photo: Carolyn Thickett

Dr. Gard Otis, a bee and butterfly researcher from the University of Guelph, is unveiling new
information about these specialist butterflies and their unique habitat requirements. The Mottled Duskywing depends on New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus), a plant that is common to alvars as well as sandy soils supporting oak savannas, a critically endangered habitat in Canada. Land management issues related to the preservation and restoration of grassland habitats, such as oak savannas, must then be included in the Mottled Duskywing recovery strategy.

One of those issues is fire suppression, originally put into practice due to the inherent risk to
property and human lives. The suppression of fire over time promotes plant succession, which is the process by which grasslands turn into shrublands, then into thickets and eventually into forests. Succession is detrimental to New Jersey Tea. It is a grassland plant that requires full sun and is unable to compete with the increasing canopy density of a forest. But what if fire wasn’t suppressed? Wouldn’t New Jersey Tea burn too?

As it turns out, New Jersey Tea is not only tolerant of fire, but it produces vigorous growth shortly after a fire disturbance (Throop & Fay, 1999). So, there is a threatened population of butterflies… living in a rare habitat… and scientists are setting it on fire?? Yup. It’s called prescribed burning.

But how do the butterflies survive such a disturbance? Sites are burned in sections, creating a patchwork of habitat with some portions left for conditions required by the butterflies. Some research by Swengel and Swengel (2007) suggests that some permanent unburned areas within the landscape may be important for specialist Lepidopterans, such as the Mottled Duskywing and the Karner Blue Butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis), which is extirpated in Canada. Additionally, fire can provide many benefits which can even outweigh the risks. Recent work by Henderson et al. (2018) shows the short-term positive effect on another grassland butterfly to prescribed fire regimes. The diagrams below illustrate the results of their study and show the positive benefit derived from regular, and even frequent, burns.

Dr. Otis and myself walked transects through specific locations within the landscape, recording the location of each Mottled Duskywing that we encountered, the quantity of New Jersey Tea plants and keeping tally of the totals. Dr. Otis’ study will examine how Mottled Duskywings respond to the prescribed burns by utilizing different portions within the landscape. The next prescribed burn will occur early next spring by property staff, then the butterfly populations will again be assessed and compared with the baseline data.

In addition, staff at the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory are currently working on determining the caterpillar rearing requirements of a related species, the Wild Indigo Duskywing. At this point they have had success getting females to lay eggs in captivity and rearing the larvae. The knowledge gained with the Wild Indigo Duskywings will be applied to the Mottled Duskywings, working towards reintroduction to one or more sites where they used to occur within the province, perhaps as early as 2020.

The Mottled Duskywing butterfly population we surveyed is the largest in Canada. At the end of the count, we received word that 4 teams of observers recorded 210 butterflies. This was great news for the researchers as the population appears to be stable, although the true population can only be determined through a detailed mark-recapture study which is tentatively being planned for summer 2019.

Mottled Duskywing conservation is gaining momentum… work has already started on habitat recovery and caterpillar rearing protocols. The information gathered and recovery actions taken could have implications for many other native prairie and grassland species. The same can be said for every other count, assessment, or restoration event. Whether you are a researcher or a concerned citizen, get involved. Know that your efforts could have massive implications for biodiversity, you could even SAVE a species from extinction!

To get involved in conservation, visit citizen science.

For more information on Mottled Duskywing butterflies, read the recovery strategy.

References

Fickenscher, J.L., Litvaitis, J.A., Lee, T.D. & Johnson, P.C. Insect responses to invasive shrubs:
Implications to managing thicket habitats in the northeastern United States. Forest Ecology
and Management 322 (complete), 127-135 (2014).

Henderson, Richard A., Meunier, Jed, & Holoubek, Nathan S. Disentangling effects of fire,
habitat, and climate on an endangered prairie-specialist butterfly. Biological Conservation 218
(complete), 41-48 (2018).

Swengel, A. B. & Swengel, S. R. Benefit of permanent non-fire refugia for Lepidoptera
conservation in fire-managed sites. Journal of Insect Conservation 11, 263–279 (2007).

Throop, Heather L. & Fay, Philip A. Effects of fire, browsers and gallers on New Jersey tea
(Ceanothus herbaceous) growth and reproduction. The American Midland Naturalist 141 (1),
51 (1999).

Giving Turtles a Head Start

*Guest post by Jethro Valido -one of several posts selected from the graduate EES3001 Scientific Literacy course at University of Toronto-Scarborough.

Photo from  Adopt-a-Pond at Toronto Zoo

When I think about turtles, the first things to come to mind are that they are slow and that they’ve been on Earth for forever. So it came to me as a surprise when I found out that most of Ontario’s turtles are actually endangered and at risk of disappearing in Ontario. In fact, seven out of the eight turtle species found in Ontario are threatened

and are in dire need of help in order to maintain populations. The problem with turtles are that they are extremely long-lived (can live up to 70+ years) and that they have a late sexual maturation (20-25 years). This makes it hard for us to study them and pin-point a cause to their decline, especially when action is required immediately.

So what exactly can we do to help their numbers from declining? One way we can help our turtles is through a head-start program. A head-start program is the process in which juveniles (in this case turtle eggs) are raised in captivity until they reach a certain age, and then they are release back into the wild. This is exactly what I am doing at the Toronto zoo; where we are head-starting the Blanding’s turtle.

The Blanding’s Turtle is one of the threatened species of turtles in Ontario. It can be easily identified and differentiated from other native turtles by its yellow throat and jaw. The biggest threats to this species are associated with humans; ranging from habitat loss due to land development, to being hit by cars when trying to cross roads due to habitat fragmentation, to predation from urban wildlife, such as raccoons, coyotes, skunks, etc. Though once numerous, their numbers have drastically declined, and to help restore their numbers, we are implementing a head-start program for this species at the zoo. This will help encourage the young to grow to maturity, where they have a higher success rate at surviving than when juveniles.

Photo from  Adopt-a-Pond at Toronto Zoo

The head-start program starts off with looking for Blanding’s turtle nests in at-risk locations. These locations are areas such as crop fields, where the eggs they would not have a good chance for survival. These eggs are then transported to the Toronto zoo where they are raised in captivity until they are 2 years old. The reason for this is to prevent predation. At birth, the turtles are very small and are easy prey for animals such as raccoons. By raising them until they are 2 in what could be called a “safe haven” for the turtles, they can grow to a sufficient size to deter predation once released. By deterring predation, their chances for survival is increased.  Once released, the turtles are tracked by radio-tracking devices and monitored.

The really interesting part about this all as a research student working at the Toronto zoo, is that there a lot of questions around the idea and process of head-starting. Although head-starting has been successful for sea turtles, its success is unknown for these freshwater turtles we have in Ontario; including Blanding’s turtle. The Toronto zoo is invested in this project long term, especially since the Blanding’s turtle has a late maturation, thus this project will be heavily research-based to understand the effects head-starting has on these turtles and whether the protocols are well-suited for the turtles. Because of this, there is a huge range of flexibility in adjusting or improving protocols and it is really something that can be applied to other turtle species around the world.

Photo from  Adopt-a-Pond at Toronto Zoo

The Adopt-a-Pond Program at the Toronto zoo is heavily involved with this project and they are quite determined to restore our Blanding’s turtle populations. With the release of these two year old turtles, Adopt-a-Pond is as well restoring their habitat; wetlands. Not only will these turtles receive help but they will act as an umbrella species to protect other threatened wetland species as well. Though we are not 100% certain whether head-starting will restore the Blanding’s turtle populations, this project is just a step in aiding declining turtle populations. From this, hopefully we can gain and discover answers to many of the questions concerning its decline, and eventually manage a long-term solution. Though rare today, hopefully one day, I can walk around the Rouge Park and bump into a yellow-throated turtle.

Here are some additional links:

-       Adopt-a-Pond Blog http://adoptapond.wordpress.com/ - Here, you can follow the Adopt-a-Pond team on their blog. They post up plenty of blogs following the status of their turtles (including Blanding’s turtles) and their releases

-       Earth Rangers Blog http://www.earthrangers.org/blog/ - Here, you can follow the Earth Rangers blog (Earth Rangers are in partnership to head-start the Blanding’s turtle). The website is mostly for children but they have posted up head-starting blogs.