Our Goal:
To make Miami a better habitat for native plants and animals

Have you ever seen this butterfly? It is the atala (Eumaeus atala), and until a few decades ago, it was believed to be extinct. Its caterpillar food source, the coontie plant, was nearly gone due to harvesting by humans. The butterfly is a slow flier and only lives 10 days, so once coontie plants were few and far between it was harder and harder for butterflies living on scattered, small groups of coontie plants to find each other to mate and lay the next generation of eggs. That was nearly the end of the atala. It was thought to be completely extinct until 1979, when the first known in decades was spotted on Virginia Key.

Atalas have bounced back since then, not as the result of some high-tech science but largely to gardeners who cared about helping it survive. When enough people planted coontie plants in their gardens, they recreated a habitat for the butterfly, and it was able to reestablish itself. Even though there may not be a huge field of pure coontie plants anywhere in Miami for the butterfly to feed on, there are small groups of coontie plants in a garden here, a highway median there, a park there, and together they create enough habitat. We call a single, small group of native plants a fragment. We call a network of fragments close enough together to become a life-sustaining habitat a corridor.

The atala is just one of over 100 animal species with the official designation of Imperiled in the state of Florida, which means at risk of becoming extinct. How many other species are like the atala, hanging on to existence by a thread in the plants on your local streets and yards? Is there a corridor of native plants in Miami that could help endangered species recover, like the atala? If not, what can we do to turn fragments of native plants that exist today into a habitat for the native animals that depend upon them?

Our Research Questions

• Where are native plants in urban neighborhoods?
• What insects and other animals are present in the urban landscape?
• Are the native plant "fragments" (small groups) close enough together to create a habitat "corridor" for the animals that depend upon them?
• Where in the city could new plants be planted, as part of an urban corridor development plan, to link up school gardens, parks, and other places with native plants?
• How can you encourage members of your community to plant native plants, to link and support the wildlife habitat?