Austin, Texas, is home to about 170 species of butterflies. It is also the home of the Austin Butterfly Forum, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to butterfly conservation and to enriching people's lives through butterflies. The Austin Butterfly Forum is a club that organizes field trips, conducts butterfly counts, promotes native gardening, performs conservation activities, and meets monthly for an educational presentation. We are a community of butterfly enthusiasts who also enjoy dragonflies & damselflies, bees, beetles, spiders and arthropods in general, and our meeting presentations span this gamut as well. Join Us!
 Abbott's sphinx moth caterpillar, photo by Graham Montgomery |
Meetings are held in the Zilker Garden Center, 2220 Barton Springs Rd., Austin, TX, 78746 at 7:00 PM on the fourth Monday of each month except December.
- Aug. 24, 2020, 7 PM meeting: Insect declines: Current Research in the Appalachians & a Roadmap Moving Forward, presented by Graham Montgomery.
Meeting will be held via Zoom: INFO TO BE POSTED HERE
- Insect declines have become an important topic over the last few years, for good reason. Insects are such a key component of virtually all terrestrial ecosystems that downward trends in insect biomass and abundance are concerning to say the least. I'll touch on the current state of insect decline research, our efforts to standardize insect monitoring, and my ongoing research in Great Smoky Mountains National Park using historical insect and bird surveys originally conducted by the early ecologist, Robert Whittaker.
I am a PhD student in Dr. Morgan Tingley's lab at UCLA, studying insect declines and their effects on insectivorous birds. I grew up in Houston, went to Cornell University where I majored in entomology, did biological field work for 3 years before starting graduate school. My PhD research focuses on using historical data as a baseline to better understand the drivers and consequences of insect declines, and I am currently doing insect and bird resurveys in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, among other projects. When I'm not in the lab or field, I enjoy macrophotography, playing basketball, and kayaking.
- Sept. 28, 2020, 7 PM meeting: TBA
MembershipAll of our normal events are open to the public, but you may want to become a member of the Austin Butterfly Forum to help support us and our events. We also treat members to some extra goodies, such as reduced admission to special programs that have a fee and discounts on purchases made at meetings. Annual membership is $20 per individual or $25 per household, payable during meetings or by mail to Lois Schubert, ABF Treasurer, 3823 Arrow Dr., Austin, TX 78749. For more information, please contact Mike Quinn, ABF president at 512-577-0250 or |