Introductions of two insect species threatened by sea‐level rise in Essex, United Kingdom: Fisher's estuarine moth Gortyna borelii lunata (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) and Mottled grasshopper Myrmeleotettix maculatus (Orthoptera: Acrididae)

Abstract

The approaches taken to establish on the Essex coast (south‐east England, UK) new wild populations of the nationally rare Fisher's estuarine moth Gortyna borelii lunata and the locally scarce Mottled grasshopper Myrmeleotettix maculatus differed in both scale and method. The aim of this paper is to describe and contrast the differing introductions and discuss their appropriateness for specific locations. Because of its rarity locally and lack of funding for a large‐scale project, live transport of M. maculatus was a simple, cheap and quick method of introducing the grasshopper to a single receptor site in 2009. To date, the site has continued to support a small breeding population of the grasshopper, which is spreading across the dunes away from its release site. The legally protected status, vulnerability and national rarity of G. borelii lunata resulted in a landscape‐scale project involving the creation of new areas of habitat by establishing the larval food plant for the species at suitable sites, commenced on the north‐east Essex coast in 2006. The aim of this project was to create a network of interconnected sites away from the threats of coastal inundation, thereby securing the future of G. borelii lunata in the UK. From 2008 onwards, a captive‐breeding programme was established at Colchester Zoo, UK, to provide live stock for the Fisher's estuarine moth introduction programme. At the time of writing, 27 new areas of habitat have been created for G. borelii lunata and 20 of these areas were shown to support signs of the moth's larval feeding in 2015. The moth was directly established using stock from the captive‐breeding programme at six of the 20 sites.

Editorial: The Role of Zoos and Aquariums in Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations

“…Assemblages of species will alter under climate‐change scenarios and conservation translocations can play a role in securing populations of threatened species in the wild, as demonstrated by Gardiner et al . () who carried out conservation introductions of two insect species that were threatened with sea‐level rises in the UK.…”

“…Concepts such as re-wilding, de-extinction, the emergence of novel ecosystems and even advances in synthetic biology will challenge our preconceptions and require us to develop new management strategies in response to an increasingly dynamic planet (Bridgewater et al, 2011;Seddon & Armstrong, 2016). Assemblages of species will alter under climate-change scenarios and conservation translocations can play a role in securing populations of threatened species in the wild, as demonstrated by Gardiner et al (2017) who carried out conservation introductions of two insect species that were threatened with sea-level rises in the UK.…”

“…There is a large and extensive literature on reintroductions covering all aspects of conservation translocations and reintroduction biology. This volume of the International Zoo Yearbook focuses on the roles that zoos and aquariums have in re-establishing or reinforcing populations in the wild, and provides examples of reintroductions using wild (Astore et al, 2017;Bird et al, 2017;Daltry et al, 2017;Ettling et al, 2017;Nightingale et al, 2017;Parrott et al, 2017) or captive populations (Astore et al, 2017;Bird et al, 2017;Fritz et al, 2017;Hogg et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017;Nightingale et al, 2017;Parrott et al, 2017;Woodfine et al, 2017), reinforcements using captive populations (Bird et al, 2017;Ettling et al, 2017) and assisted colonizations (Gardiner et al, 2017;Fraser et al, 2017). The papers in this volume cover a range of animal and plant taxa, and present species-specific reintroduction case studies that highlight particular challenges, such as biosecurity and disease management (Hogg et al, 2017;Nightingale et al, 2017;Woodfine et al, 2017), the impact of invasive species (Daltry et al, 2017;Nightingale et al, 2017) and introduced predators (Parrott et al, 2017) on native biodiversity, as well as broader review articles on the role that zoos and aquariums have in reintroductions and reinforcements (Fraser et al, 2017;Gilbert et al, 2017), and many of the articles describe the processes associated with conservation translocations.…”

“…Zoos and aquariums have considerable experience in managing a variety of taxa resulting in them being well placed to contribute to a wide range of conservationtranslocation projects. The papers in this volume exemplify how zoos and aquariums can participate in such projects for birds (Astore et al, 2017;Fraser et al, 2017;Fritz et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017), mammals (Hogg et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017;Parrott et al, 2017), reptiles (Daltry et al, 2017;Fraser et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017;Woodfine et al, 2017), amphibians (Ettling et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017), terrestrial invertebrates (Gardiner et al, 2017), aquatic invertebrates (Nightingale et al, 2017) and plants (Bird et al, 2017). This volume does not contain any case studies of conservation-translocation projects for fish, and although zoos and aquariums have certainly been involved in re-establishing fish populations in the wild (e.g.…”

Reintroductions of native plant species to the United Kingdom

“…In some cases the plant species may only be part of the story, where an ecological process or a functioning community is the objective. The Barberry Highways Project aims to reintroduce the Barberry carpet moth Pareulype berberata but the larval food plant must be restored first (see also Gardiner et al ., ). In such projects, phased aims are appropriate and the achievement of certain milestones (e.g.…”