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Monarch Butterflies are Dying Fast and Here is Why!

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Monarch Butterflies are Dying Fast and Here is Why!

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Monarch butterflies travel three thousand miles for migration each year. Monarch butterflies travel from north to south for winter. Monarch butterflies need many resources for migration and survival. Monarch butterflies travel for breeding grounds and shelter from harsh winters.

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Scientist have said monarch butterflies population has dropped 80% in the last 20 years. In the last year it has dropped 15% out of the 80% which indicates its getting worse. Monarch butterflies need many resources to survive and humans are a big culprit why they could go extinct.

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1. There is a very small population of milkweed in the north. Milkweed is one of the only plants monarch butterflies and caterpillars feed off of. Constantly burning fossil fuels Has caused climate change and has increased carbon dioxide. Milkweed areas have too much carbon dioxide causing this plant to build certain molecules that can be too toxic for the monarch butterfly caterpillars to consume.

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2.The next reason is also due to climate change. The rising temperatures are pushing Spring and Summer breeding grounds farther up north. This means a longer trip to Mexico in the fall.

Scientists have proven that overtime monarch butterflies wings have grown bigger because they have had to adapt to a longer migration path.

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3. The last reason is loss of habitat. With the loss of milkweed in very many areas the butterflies have a hard time stopping, resting, reproducing and eating in many areas. Monarchs search for these habitats in without them many are dying.

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We can help in so many ways! But the main way to help is planting milkweed plants where we can. This will help supply habitat and resources for monarch butterflies and caterpillars. Also planting nectar plants for butterflies to feed on is important. Lastly encouraging others to get involved and help stop monarch butterfly extinction.

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I picked this topic because every time I go on to a website I see ads and news articles on butterfly extinction and I was very curious on why they were going extinct and how we can help. I also chose this topic because every time I would go to Moody Gardens my family and I would go see all of the butterflies. I just remember how cool this species is and I wanted to learn more about it.

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The epic 3,000-mile monarch butterfly migration may become a thing of the past. Each fall, monarchs travel from their summer homes in the northern U.S. and Canada to winter habitats in California and Mexico. But the 2018 Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count found that the number of west-coast monarchs spending the winter in California had plunged to only 20,456 butterflies-a drop of 86 percent since last year. And the number of eastern monarchs overwintering in Mexico this year has dropped 15 percent since last year, for a total decline of more than 80 percent over the past 20 years, according to the National Wildlife Federation.

This year's count is only the latest in a string of bad news for the charismatic butterfly that makes one of the longest known insect migrations. The culprit? Humans. The twin forces of human-caused climate change and habitat loss are now threatening North American monarch butterflies with extinction.

Increasing carbon dioxide levels may be making milkweed-the only food monarch caterpillars will eat-too toxic for the monarchs to tolerate. And higher temperatures may also be driving summer breeding areas further north. That means the monarchs' migration routes will get longer and therefore more difficult. ( Learn how monarch butterflies make their epic migration.)

"A lot of environmental threats can pile up on top of each other," says University of Wisconsin entomologist and director of the UW-Arboretum Karen Oberhauser. And the consequences can be hard to predict.

Although monarchs teeter on the edge of an extinction tipping point-in which their numbers drop too low for the species to recover-scientists like Obserhauser say all is not yet lost. Creating new monarch habitat by planting native milkweed species may provide crucial fuel and rest stops for the traveling butterflies, as will taking more action to address climate change.

A 2004 email from a Midwestern farmer first alerted Kansas University entomologist Chip Taylor to the pending monarch apocalypse. The creation of herbicide-resistant corn and soybeans meant that farmers could eradicate weeds and other understory plants, including milkweed, that competed with their crops.

The invisible hand of fear and dread gripped Taylor's gut. He had spent years studying monarchs and knew they depended on the milkweed studding their migratory corridor across the Midwest. The advent of these new crop varieties meant the death of milkweed.

Data over the next few years only confirmed Taylor's worst fears: monarch numbers began to plummet. "In a very short period of time, monarchs took a tremendous hit, with tremendous consequences," Taylor says.

In addition to the loss of milkweed across farms, drought also harms milkweed quality. A 2013 drought in Texas decimated milkweed there, which contributed to low monarch numbers that year.

The loss of milkweed has clued in an increasingly concerned public that the beautiful butterflies they love might go the way of the passenger pigeon and the woolly mammoth. Awareness of vanishing milkweed bled over into fears of how monarchs would fare as the climate continued to change. A series of papers in the last few years shows that these worries were not misplaced.

Rising carbon dioxide levels from the burning of fossil fuels sit at the heart of climate change, and this increase of carbon can alter how plants like milkweed build certain molecules, explains ecologist Leslie Decker, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. Milkweed produces toxic steroids called cardenolides. The monarchs have evolved in a way that allows them to tolerate low levels of this poison, storing it in their bodies as a bitter-tasting deterrent to predators.

Cardenolides also help the butterflies by impeding the growth of a monarch parasite with the tongue-twisting name Ophryocystis elektroscirrha. "I had to practice pronouncing this when I was in grad school," Decker laughs.

The single-celled parasite can infect newly hatched caterpillars by drilling holes in their gut to replicate. If the caterpillars survive, the resulting butterflies have misshapen wings and lowered endurance. Cardenolides help the monarchs tolerate the parasite so that it doesn't harm them.

But when Decker grew milkweed in a greenhouse with carbon dioxide levels of 760 parts per million (ppm)-what climate scientists project will happen in 150 to 200 years as the current level of 410 ppm continues to rise-she found that the plants produced a different mix of cardenolides, one that was less effective against monarch parasites. She published her findings in July 2018 in Ecology Letters.

"We don't know how we're changing the green pharmacy around us," Decker says.

GOLDILOCKS ZONE OF TOXICITY

Furthermore, not all milkweed created equal. As the public began to plant milkweed in their backyard, big box and chain nurseries eagerly supplied them. The plants they tended to offer, however, were a hardy, easy-to-grow species of milkweed originally found in Mexico, Asclepias curassavica. Like its other North American cousins, A. curassavica produces toxic cardenolides, but in significantly higher levels than native U.S. milkweed species. These levels are at the very top end of what the monarchs can handle, says Matt Faldyn, an ecology Ph.D. student at Louisiana State University.

In work published in Ecology, Faldyn found that warming temperatures increased cardenolide levels in A. curassavica even further, making them too toxic for the butterflies.

"There's a Goldilocks zone for these toxins, where they're not too toxic but not too weak, either. With climate change, milkweed may pass this tipping point and leave the Goldilocks zone," Faldyn says.

Oberhauser says that because both studies on milkweed toxicity were done in the lab, scientists still don't know for sure exactly what impact changing cardenolide levels will have on monarchs. Still, Faldyn suggests looking for native milkweed species to plant, as they are best adapted to local environments and may be less likely to turn ultra-toxic.

Climate change isn't affecting monarchs just via milkweed. It's also shaping the butterflies more directly. Micah Freedman, a Ph.D. student in ecology and evolution at the University of California, Davis, visited museum collections around the country in 2017. With the help of a National Geographic Society exploration grant, Freedman was able to measure the size of thousands of monarchs dating back to the 1870s. Monarch butterflies come in a range of sizes, with a wingspan from 3.5 to 4.8 inches, so it was only when he began to analyze his measurements on the computer that he found a small but consistent 4.9 percent increase in wing size over the past century and a half.

"I initially didn't believe it myself," he says.

Freedman's study, published this month in Animal Migration, couldn't determine why wing size is on the rise, but he believes that one reason could be climate change. Rising temperatures could be pushing spring and summer breeding grounds further north, which means a longer return trip to Mexico in the fall. Knowing that monarch size corresponds to the distance they migrate, Freedman says, monarchs with larger, longer wings have a major advantage over their smaller counterparts.

As population numbers continue to drop, extinction becomes ever more likely. The United States Geological Survey asked Oberhauser, Brice Semmens, a fisheries biologist at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute who studies population dynamics, and a group of other monarch experts to determine the largest threats to monarchs and the chances that this species would decline to the point of no return. Their mathematical models predicted an 11 to 57 percent chance that monarch numbers would drop so much in the next 20 years that the species wouldn't be able to recover. To cut this risk in half would mean monarch populations must increase by more than five million butterflies, Semmens says.

"No population process is inexorable. We can't predict what will happen next year," he says.

A follow-up study by the USGS group showed that the top three factors that led to lower monarch numbers were loss of habitat area in the Upper Midwest and high temperatures both in the spring and the late summer. Taylor estimates that more than a billion milkweed stems are needed to reduce the carnage.

"We have the capability to save monarch and other species," he says. "The question is whether we have the will to do it."

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The epic 3,000-mile monarch butterfly migration may become a thing of the past. Each fall, monarchs travel from their summer homes in the northern U.S. and Canada to winter habitats in California and Mexico. But the 2018 Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count found that the number of west-coast monarchs spending the winter in California had plunged to only 20,456 butterflies-a drop of 86 percent since last year.

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The latest survey assessing the population of monarch butterflies that winter in Mexico indicates a population decrease of 53% since the previous season. In the 2019-2020 wintering season, the area of forest occupied by monarch butterflies was 7 acres, down from 15 acres in the 2018 - 2019 season.

The area occupied by monarch butterflies in the forests of Mexico is used as an indicator of the number of butterflies that migrate each year from the US and Canada to Mexico. The survey conducted was led by WWF-Mexico and is carried out every year in collaboration with the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas of Mexico, and the WWF Alliance-Telmex Telcel Foundation, in coordination with local communities. This year's monitoring found 11 colonies where monarchs congregated.

Substantially lower temperatures in Southern Texas when monarchs arrived in March and April 2019 led to a slow growth of eggs and larvae during the Spring. This resulted in fewer monarchs to produce the following generations, including the one that migrates from Canada through the US to Mexico. Therefore, the smaller population occupied fewer acres of Mexican forests.

"The current monarch butterfly population decline is not an alarming one, but we must remain vigilant and not allow it to become a trend in the coming years. Conservation is a long-term job," said Jorge Rickards, Managing Director, WWF-Mexico. "The latest forest report indicates the hibernation habitat is in good condition, with a very low illegal logging rate. We are committed to continuing to work with everyone involved to help the species, its habitat and the local communities that depend on it."

Each year monarch butterflies migrate from southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States to hibernate in the forests of Mexico.

This migration is considered as one of the most admirable phenomena in the animal kingdom. Preserving their journey requires action in light of threats such as climate change, land conversion, and forest degradation.

WWF works with the Mexican government, local communities, and partners to protect the monarch hibernation grounds in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, and to support sustainable projects that provide an economic alternative to the people who live in the monarch region.

We can all help by planting nectar plants from which butterflies can feed and obtain enough energy to continue their journey throughout North America. Plants like milkweed in the United States and Canada are essential for monarch reproduction; it's the only plant where monarchs lay their eggs and where baby larvae feed from.

Find out which kind of milkweed you should plant in your region and help save the monarch butterfly.

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New study indicates a 53% decrease in area occupied by monarch butterflies | Stories | WWF

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The latest survey assessing the population of monarch butterflies that winter in Mexico indicates a population decrease of 53% since the previous season. In the 2019-2020 wintering season, the area of forest occupied by monarch butterflies was 7 acres, down from 15 acres in the 2018 - 2019 season.

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This map was created in collaboration with the Center for Global Environmental Education at Hamline University with generous support from U.S. Forest Service - International Programs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Missouri Department of Conservation.
Eastern Monarchs

Decreasing day length and temperatures, along with aging milkweed and fewer nectar sources trigger a change in monarchs; this change signifies the beginning of the migratory generation. Unlike summer generations that live for two to six weeks as adults, adults in the migratory generation can live for up to nine months. Most monarch butterflies that emerge after about mid August in the eastern U.S. enter reproductive diapause (do not reproduce) and begin to migrate south in search of the overwintering grounds where they have never been before. From across the eastern U.S. and southern Canada, monarchs funnel toward Mexico. Along the way, they find refuge in stopover sites with abundant nectar sources and shelter from harsh weather. Upon reaching their destination in central Mexico beginning in early November, monarchs aggregate in oyamel fir trees on south-southwest facing mountain slopes. These locations provide cool temperatures, water, and adequate shelter to protect them from predators and allow them to conserve enough energy to survive winter. In March, this generation begins the journey north into Texas and southern states, laying eggs and nectaring as they migrate and breed. The first generation offspring from the overwintering population continue the journey from the southern U.S. to recolonize the eastern breeding grounds, migrating north through the central latitudes in approximately late April through May. Second and third generations populate the breeding grounds throughout the summer. It is generally the fourth generation that begins where we started this paragraph, migrating through the central and southern U.S. and northern Mexico to the wintering sites in central Mexico.

Western Monarchs

In any given year, adult monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains leave overwintering sites along the California coast (with a small number of sites in Baja California and Arizona) in February and March and head inland in search of milkweed on which to deposit their eggs. Once first-generation monarch eggs reach adulthood, they disperse east across the Central Valley and north across most of the western states. Second- and third-generation monarchs live and die throughout spring and summer, generally staying in the same areas where they hatched. The fourth generation (along with late bloomers from the third generation) emerges in late summer to fall. This migratory generation lives 6-9 months, compared to the 2-5 weeks of earlier generations. Western migratory monarchs also differ biologically from non-migratory generations; they are in a state of reproductive diapause, meaning their reproductive organs do not mature until later in the adult stage (after winter). Instead of looking for milkweed, fourth-generation western monarchs require nectar to build lipid reserves as they migrate south and west to the overwintering sites along the California coast (also in Baja California and Arizona), arriving around late October. Once they arrive, they roost for the winter in eucalyptus, Monterey cypress, Monterey pine, and other trees, sometimes in aggregations of thousands of individuals. In February and March, reproductive diapause ends and the annual cycle starts anew. Milkweed and nectar plant availability throughout the spring, summer, and fall will benefit western monarchs. In areas of the desert southwest, monarchs use nectar and milkweed plants throughout much of the year. For western monarch information and resources, visit the Western Monarchs category of our Downloads and Links page.

How do monarchs find the overwintering sites?

Orientation is not well understood in insects. In monarchs, orientation is especially mysterious. How do millions of monarchs start their southbound journey from all over eastern and central North America and end up in a very small area in the mountains of central Mexico? How do western monarchs find the same overwintering groves year after year? We know that they do not learn the route from their parents since only about every fourth to fifth generation of North American monarch migrates. Therefore, it is certain that monarchs rely on their instincts rather than learning to find overwintering sites. What kind of instincts might they rely on? Other animals use celestial cues (the sun, moon, or stars), the earth's magnetic field, landmarks (mountain ranges or bodies of water), polarized light, infra-red energy perception, or some combination of these cues. Of these, the first two are considered to be the most likely cues that monarchs use, and consequently have been studied the most.

Sun Compass: Since monarchs migrate during the day, the sun is the celestial cue most likely to be useful in pointing the way to the overwintering sites. This proposed mechanism is called a sun compass. Monarchs may use the angle of the sun along the horizon in combination with an internal body clock (like a circadian rhythm) to maintain a southwesterly flight path. The way this would work is illustrated below. For example, if a monarch's internal clock reads 10:00 AM, then the monarch will fly to the west of the sun to maintain a southern flight direction. When the monarch's internal clock reads noon (12:00 PM), the monarch's instincts tell it to fly straight toward the sun, while later in the day the monarch's instincts tell it to fly to the east of the sun.

However, this would have to be combined with the use of some other kind of cue. If all the monarchs in eastern and central North America maintained a southwesterly flight, they could never all end up in the same place. It has been proposed that mountain ranges are important landmarks used by monarchs during their migration. For example, when eastern monarchs encounter a mountain range, their instincts might tell them to turn south and follow the mountain range. This kind of instinct would serve to funnel monarchs from the entire eastern half of North America to a fairly small region in the mountains of central Mexico.

Magnetic Compass: Scientists have suggested that monarchs may use a magnetic compass to orient, possibly in addition to a sun compass or as a "back-up" orientation guide on cloudy days when they cannot see the sun. Studies of migratory birds have indicated that they register the angle made by the earth's magnetic field and the surface of the earth. These angles point south in the Northern Hemisphere and north in the Southern Hemisphere.

James Kanz (1977) conducted experiments to test the orientation of migratory monarchs held in cylindrical flight chambers. He reported that the monarchs flew in southwesterly directions on sunny days, but flew in random directions on cloudy days. He concluded that monarchs primarily use the sun to orient, and that magnetic orientation was unlikely, since the monarchs did not appear to be able to orient when they could not use the sun. However, Klaus Scmidt-Koenig (1985) reported conflicting evidence. He recorded the vanishing bearings (the direction in which a monarch disappears from sight) of wild, migratory monarchs, and found that even on cloudy days, most monarchs still flew in a southwesterly direction. Scientists attempted additional tests of magnetic orientation, but were not able to determine whether monarchs use the Earth's magnetic field to orient.

However, researchers from the Reppert Lab (2014) showed that migratory monarchs indeed possess a magnetic compass that aids in orienting migrants south towards their overwintering grounds during fall migration. Remarkably, the use of the magnetic compass requires short wave UV-light (previous magnetic compass experiments failed to account for light at this range). With UV-light being allowed to enter the flight simulator, eastern migratory monarchs consistently oriented themselves south. The light-sensitive magnetosensors reside in the adult monarch's antennae. While the expert consensus remains that the sun compass is the monarch's primary compass for navigation, the authors suggest migratory monarchs use the magnetic compass to augment their sun compass.

Genetics: Upon dispersal, the Central and South American, Atlantic, and Pacific populations lost the ability to migrate. This prompted researchers to identify the gene regions in North American monarchs that appeared highly differentiated from non-migratory populations. Kronforst et al. (2014) identified 536 genes significantly associated with migration. One single genomic segment appeared to be divergent in the non-migrating populations and was extremely different from the North American population. One gene, collagen IV alpha-1, showed high divergence between migrating and non-migrating populations. Collagen IV alpha-1 is an important gene for muscle function, and divergence of this gene implicates selection for different flight muscles between migrating and non-migrating populations. Surprisingly, Collagen IV alpha-1 was down regulated in migratory monarchs, perhaps preparing them for lengthy flight. Furthermore, migrating monarchs had low metabolic rates compared to non-migrants as a consequence of flight muscle performance, lowering energy expenditure in migrating monarchs muscles. This evidence led researchers to conclude that changes in muscle function afforded migrating monarchs the ability to fly farther and use their energy more efficiently. Dr. Kronforst used the analogy of a marathon runner vs. a sprinter, "Migrating butterflies are essentially endurance athletes, while others are sprinters."

Overwintering Biology

Where do the monarchs go?

It is thought that monarchs were originally tropical butterflies that underwent range expansion. Scientists are not sure how long the monarch's spectacular annual migration to Mexico has been occurring; it may be as old as 10,000 years (when the glaciers last retreated from North America) or as young as a few centuries. The earliest reports of overwintering clusters of monarchs in the United States were from California in the 1860s.

Monarch overwintering sites in Mexico and along the California coast have particular characteristics that enable monarch survival. These characteristics are important because they provide the monarch with the right overwintering conditions. Trees on which to cluster are one of the most important elements of the sites. The climate and the entire surrounding area are also important. Nearby trees, streams, underbrush, and fog or clouds all form an intricate natural ecosystem comprising the monarchs' winter habitat. Monarchs need a cool place to roost so that they don't use up their energy reserves as quickly. They also need to be protected from snow and winds. The surrounding trees serve as a buffer to the winds and snow.

Although monarchs are found in many areas of the world, the most spectacular migration occurs in North America.

Monarchs that spend the summer breeding season in eastern North America (including states and provinces east of the Rocky Mountains: central and eastern Canada, midwestern and eastern United States) migrate to the Transvolcanic mountains of central Mexico. Many millions of monarchs from these regions fly south to Mexico each fall. Their flight pattern is shaped like a cone as they come together and pass over the state of Texas on their way south. In massive butterfly clouds, they sweep up into the mountain ranges of central Mexico. Indigenous Mexican cultures of the Transvolcanic Range have welcomed the monarch migration since time immemorial; in 1975 scientists from Canada and the U.S. recorded the overwintering sites for the first time.

In Mexico, monarchs roost in oyamel fir forests, which occur in a very small mountainous area in central Mexico. Overwintering sites are about 3000 meters (almost 2 miles) above sea level and are on steep, southwest-facing slopes. Because monarchs need water for moisture, the fog and clouds in this mountainous region provide another important element for the winter survival of the monarchs. The butterflies choose spots that are close to, but not quite, freezing. They cluster together, covering whole tree trunks and branches, and cling to fir and pine needles. The tall trees make a thick canopy over their heads. Protective trees and bushes soften the wind and shield the butterflies from the occasional snow, rain, or hail. Each of the above elements is important to the butterflies, making up the monarch habitat - trees in which to roost, other trees and shrubs to protect them, the cool air, and the presence of water.

Monarchs do not reproduce until the spring, so they do not rely on milkweed during this time. They do seek out water and drink nectar from flowers in the overwintering sites. These two documents list nectar plants identified within the overwintering reserves in Mexico (documents are in Spanish): PLANTAS de la Reserva de la Biosfera Mariposa Monarca, PLANTAS.

Monarchs that spend the summer breeding season in western North America (including states west of the Rocky Mountains: Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, and Montana) migrate to specific overwintering groves along the California coast roughly between Mendocino County in the north, and San Diego County in the South. Here, monarchs roost in eucalyptus trees, Monterey pines, and Monterey cypresses that are located in bays sheltered from wind, or farther inland where they're protected from storms. There are over 400 historic overwintering aggregations in California in addition to many temporary clusters. Scientists estimate that the California monarchs make up about 5% of the overall worldwide monarch population. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has mapped out where to see congregations of overwintering monarchs in California here.

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Each year, over the course of a few generations, monarchs make an incredible journey across North America to overwintering sites in Mexico and California.

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Monarch Butterfly Migration and Overwintering

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