Course Description of Special Topics course Bio Sci E190

Title: The Ecology of Costa Rican Butterfly Farming

Listing on Transcript: Spec Top:Costa Rica

Credit: 4 units Class size limit: 8

Prerequisite: Bio Sci 94, Organisms to Ecosystems

Time offered: Fall Quarter, 2007

Two lectures during the quarter

Field trip Costa Rica from December 21 to January 5

Course Material

No text book is available on this subject. Web sites will be used as supplementary materials as well as educational material provided by Costa Rican Entomological Supply.

The students will be presented with two lectures at Irvine during the Fall quarter. The first will be a lecture on the geological and biological diversity of Costa Rica in order to acquaint the students with the country they will be visiting. The second lecture will emphasize the social and political history of Costa Rica. The students will be informed of Costa Rica’s unusual history and the reasons for its sharp political contrasts with its neighbors, Nicaragua and Panama. The students will then be acquainted with the notion of economic development in concert with biologically sustainable development in concert with the preservation of biological diversity. Butterfly farming in Costa Rico will be employed as a case study.

On December 18, 2007 Dr. Bradley and the students will fly to Costa Rica for a 15 day field trip. Lectures will be provided each day on this trip by Dr. Bradley and by Maria Blaese. Mrs. Blaese is a trained biologist (Masters Degree from the University of Mainz) who is the Chief Biologist at the Schmetterlings Garten (Butterfly Garden) in Sayn, Germany. She has worked in this field for a number of years, has traveled extensively in the study of butterflies and their culture, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Butterfly Exhibitors. The students will be provided with a tour of the facilities of Costa Rican Entomological Supply as well as a lecture by its founder and president Mr. Joris Brinckerhoff. We will visit several butterfly farms to examine first hand the procedures used and to speak with the farmers. This entails also extensive guided hikes through the native vegetation to study and examine its diversity and structure. We will travel to the far northern regions of the country, examine mid-altitude forest habitats, travel to high altitude cloud forest for which Costa Rica is justifiably famous, and travel to the drier savannah regions on the Pacific Coast. In each habitat, Dr. Bradley and Mrs. Blaese will engage the students in discussions of the flora and fauna observed and examine the biodiversity in the context of the specific climatic and social influences.

The students will pay one fee that will cover all of their expenses including air travel, land travel, room, and board. It is estimated that this fee will be approximately two thousand five hundred dollars ($2500.00). Neither Dr. Bradley nor Mrs. Blaese will benefit financially from conducting this trip. Travel will be by airplane round trip from Los Angeles to San Jose, CR, and by van in the country. We will stay in small hotels and in some cases in simple accommodations provided by the farmers. Students will be expected to stay with the group at all times.

Academic expectations:

To receive full credit, students will be required to attend both lectures at UC Irvine. These students will be given a grade of Incomplete (I) at the end of the Fall quarter. During our time in Costa Rica, students will be expected to take notes in preparation for a paper to be submitted upon return to UCI. The students will be required to provide a ten-page paper on or before January 20, 2008, on a topic selected by them and approved by Dr. Bradley related to butterfly farming or social and/or political policies in Costa Rica related to the preservation of biodiversity.

Examples of acceptable paper topics:

Rearing techniques specific to the Blue Morpho butterfly

Rearing techniques specific to the Owl’s Eye butterfly (Caligo eurilochus)

The influence of political policies on the acquisition of virgin lands by farmers in Costa Rica.

Rainfall pattern across Costa Rica and their influence on floral or faunal distributions.

Policies for protecting breeding sea turtles on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast.

These papers will be graded by Dr. Bradley. The student’s final grade will be determined by participation in the scheduled activities (20% of grade) and by the final paper (80%). The student’s final grade will be submitted by February 15, 2008.

Background Information

The country of Costa Rica lies between the latitudes of 11N and 9N. It borders on the Caribbean on its east side and the Pacific Ocean on its west. Altitude ranges from sea level to 3100 meters. Because of the diversity of altitude, rainfall patterns and soil origins, biological diversity in Costa Rica is extremely rich. Biological diversity tends to increase as one moves toward the equator, yet Costa Rica has greater biological diversity than many of its more southern neighbors because of political and personal policies that have preserved the environment and directed development in more ecologically friendly directions. Costa Rica has a greater percentage of national parks than any other Latin American country. Costa Rica therefore provides a fascinating object of study for students interested in biology, ecological conservation, and the effects of social policies on land use and environment.

As in all Latin American countries, burgeoning populations have lead to increased pressure on natural resources. In Costa Rica, both government policies and individual decisions have placed unusual emphasis on sustainability and the protection of natural resources in meeting these needs. This course will provide a detailed case study of one such industry in Costa Rica: butterfly rearing and exportation.

Costa Rica has a great abundance and diversity of large and beautiful butterflies. These butterflies depend on larval food plants in the tropical flora found in the forests and savannah. As the natural vegetation has been removed for housing, roads or farming, the native butterflies populations have declined as have populations of all other animals dependent on a diverse and intact native tropical habitat. Policies which preserve the native vegetation in as undisturbed a state as possible, can have great implications in the protection of native biodiversity. In the early 1970’s Joris Brinckerhoff, an American Peace Corp volunteer who stayed on in Costa Rica after his service, formed Costa Rican Entomological Supply (CRES), a company which pays farmers for native butterfly pupae. The company then exports these pupae to butterfly gardens in North America and Europe. By paying on average more than a dollar per pupa, the CRES promotes the economy of the rural areas and provides financial incentives for the native people to preserve the native vegetation and prosper financially from it.

Butterfly farming consists of the following procedures. Farmers collect butterfly eggs that have been laid in the forest on native larval food plants, or on small clusters of such plants tended by the farmers near the native forests. The presence of eggs is totally dependent on healthy populations of native butterflies. The farmers move the eggs to safe sites; either plants covered in gauze or plants tended in fine-mesh wire cages. This is intended to protect the eggs and growing larvae from natural predators, principally birds and ants. The native plants must then be tended to provide food for the larvae. When the larvae pupate, the pupae are harvested and taken to the CRES offices near San Jose and sold. The sale of pupae provides a substantial income for these farmers. This income source can only be maintained if the native forests with their native butterfly populations are preserved. None of the butterfly species is maintained totally in domestication.

Again, I wish to emphasize that Dr Bradley and Mrs. Blaese will be accompanying the students throughout the trip. The two instructors are paying their own way and will not benefit financially from the fees the students pay for the trip.