Fort Indiantown Gap National Guard Training Center: Operation Regal Ramp-Up
Regal fritillary habitat restoration and expansion are ongoing; managers are attenpting to provide the "Old Field" habitat preferred by many native insects by removing invasive species and using manual cutting, mowing, herbicide, and prescribed fire to reduce the effects of ecological succession.
Project Area
Management Goals
Natural resource managers at Fort Indiantown Gap are interested in providing a durable and safe training environment, while providing for the longevity of at-risk species in the area as the climate changes. This will include maintaining the oak and native warm-season grass vegetation community that provides habitat for the regal fritillary butterfly, and maintaining or increasing the density of plants that can provide nectar or act as larval hosts. In addition, they wish to support migratory and breeding monarch butterflies by increasing the presence of milkweeds. Approximately 200 acres are currently actively managed for the regal fritillary.
Climate Change Impacts
Challenges and Opportunities
Challenges
Opportunities
Adaptation Actions
Project participants used the Adaptation Workbook to develop several adaptation actions for this project, including:
Area/Topic | Approach | Tactics |
---|---|---|
Warm season grasses/butterfly habitat | 4.2. Prioritize and maintain sensitive or at-risk species or communities. | Maintain existing 200 acres of fritillary butterfly habitat through prescribed burns, mowing, mechanical removal of woody species, and planting desired native wildflowers. Expand butterfly habitat area and training on 100 acres by removing hardwood species and restoring native warm season grasses (through spraying herbicide, mechanically removing woody species, and seeding native warm season grasses and wildflowers). |
6.1. Manage habitats over a range of sites and conditions. | Maintain residual hardwoods in butterfly habitat area. Assess alternative violet species that are acceptable host plants for the regal fritillary in the field (in addition to Viola sagittata). Multiple Viola species are used for captively reared regal caterpillars. | |
7.2. Maintain and create habitat corridors through reforestation or restoration. | Encourage and create corridors along roadways, right of ways, and any other openings between training areas that currently maintain regal fritillary populations by seeding/planting desired nectar species of wildflowers. | |
10.1 Promptly revegetate sites after disturbance. | Reseed after fire or other disturbances with preferred butterfly host/food species. |