Portland Area Invertebrates

(see the list)

Have you ever wondered how many insects are in your backyard? Your neighborhood park? Your city? What if you tried to add all of the slugs, worms, snails, clams, and roly-polies? Understanding the complexity of your backyard, or citywide, ecosystem requires an enormous effort. Well, the regional council that oversees planning in the Portland metropolitan area (Metro) decided to take on that challenge, and they asked the Xerces Society to help.

Why is Metro taking on this challenge? Documenting all of the invertebrates, plants, fungi, and vertebrates in an area that comprises three counties and twenty-six cities is a big job. According to Paul Ketchum, who is overseeing Metro's efforts to create the list, they are interested in using this information "to identify species and their associated habitats that comprise (or represent) the biodiversity of [the] region. This information will be used to assist Metro in developing regional policies to protect, conserve, and restore the region's fish and wildlife habitat."

Scutigera coleoptera - native to Mexico and the southern USA - spread throughout USA because of its aptitude for living in human dwellings (photo: J. Adams).

The Xerces Society applauds Metro's vision, and is happy to help in this task. We see this as an excellent opportunity to make sure that the importance of invertebrates is recognized when regional planning decisions are made. Without the inclusion of invertebrates, the true biological diversity of the region is not taken into consideration. Furthermore, municipalities and universities across the U.S. often look to Metro as an example of progressive city and regional planning. If Metro works to document and protect invertebrates, as well as the wealth of birds, plants, mammals, and other wildlife found within its jurisdictional borders, other municipalities may follow suit.

Peltodytes sp. - a crawling water beetle. (photo: J. Adams)

To document our local invertebrate diversity, the Xerces Society spent the last two months contacting experts from Oregon to the Dakotas. We received excellent lists of insect species from Linda Kervin of Utah State University, Dana Ross of Oregon State University and the Evergreen Aurelians, Jim Johnson of Portland, Bruce Barbarasch from the Tualatin Hills Nature Park, and Mike Cole of ABR, Inc. The Oregon Natural Heritage Program and the USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center also were very generous to give us permission to use the data they have collected over the years. With the help of these folks, we pulled together a list that was sent to Metro on March 22, 2001.

This project will be ongoing for the foreseeable future, and we would be excited to receive help or suggestions from our members. If you would like to see the Portland Area Invertebrate Species List, please choose the link below. And if you would like to give us feedback or suggest additional species that should be listed, please contact Mace Vaughan at mace@xerces.org.
(see the list)

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