From the CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY & HYDROLOGY and the Edith’s Checkerspot Club comes this tale of possible bug disaster we’ve all heard before. Except, Nature often finds a way, and scientific claims of extinction sometimes end up being proven wrong by nature itself.
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Widespread drought-sensitive butterfly population extinctions could occur in the UK as early as 2050 according to a new study published today in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change.
However, the authors conclude that substantial greenhouse gas emission reductions combined with better management of landscapes, in particular reducing habitat fragmentation, will greatly improve the chances of drought-sensitive butterflies flying until at least 2100.
The study was led by Dr Tom Oliver from the UK’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) in collaboration with colleagues from CEH, the charity Butterfly Conservation, Natural England and the University of Exeter.
Lead author Dr Tom Oliver from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said, “The results are worrying. Until I started this research, I hadn’t quite realised the magnitude and potential impacts from climate change. For drought-sensitive butterflies, and potentially other taxa, widespread population extinctions are expected by 2050. To limit these loses, both habitat restoration and reducing CO2 emissions have a role. In fact, a combination of both is necessary.”
The team identified six species of drought-sensitive butterfly – ringlet, speckled wood, large skipper, large white, small white and green-veined white – as having a low probability of persistence by 2050 even under most favourable emissions scenario. Butterflies were chosen for this study as they are amongst the best studied groups of species with good records of year-to-year changes in abundance, but there are many other drought sensitive groups which may be similarly affected.
Dr Oliver adds, “We consider the average response across Great Britain. Losses are likely to be more severe in drier areas with more intensive land use, whilst wetter areas with less fragmented habitat will provide refugia. We assume that butterflies won’t have time to evolve to become more drought-tolerant, because their populations are already small, and evolution would need to be very rapid. The study looked at butterflies but the conclusions are potentially valid for other species such as birds, beetles, moths and dragonflies.”
The study combined data from data from 129 sites for 28 species monitored as part of UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, with historic climate data from the Central England Temperature and the England and Wales Rainfall monthly series, habitat data from UK Land Cover Map, and climate model projections from 17 global circulation models in the CMIP5 database. Impacts of four Representative Concentration Pathways (different global CO2 emission trajectories) were investigated.
Co-author Mike Morecroft from Natural England said, “There’s good news and bad news here. The good news is that we can increase the resilience of species to climate change by improving our natural environment, particularly increasing areas of habitat and we are working hard at this. However, this approach will only work if climate change is limited by effective controls on greenhouse gas emissions.”
Co-author Tom Brereton from Butterfly Conservation said, “The study highlights the pressing need to investigate local conservation measures that may help drought-sensitive butterflies to adapt and persist in our changing countryside.”
Co-author Dr Chris Huntingford also from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said, “Many climate projections indicate rapid increases in the frequency of severe drought events under all scenarios, but especially under the steepest rise in CO2 emissions. There is uncertainty in these projections, which we captured by considering outputs from seventeen different climate models. The overall results suggest that drought-sensitive butterflies are only likely to avoid widespread extinctions if CO2 emission levels are reduced below business-as-usual and, furthermore, this in combination with habitat restoration measures”
Co-author Dr Christel Prudhomme from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said, ‘This study highlights the benefits of much tighter discussion between researchers from physical and environmental science disciplines- between those who develop simulations of expected levels of future climate change, and those who can translate those projections into local impacts and potential adaptation strategies’
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That most mischievous of words comes up again. Could
That word should be banned from anything considered science.
My thoughts exactly. You beat me to it almost word for word.
I’ve been told that warming COULD cause the Return Of The Chicago 7
Seriously, COULD is the first thing that I noticed too!
repetition from me below, saw -could – and went straight to comments.
And of course the word ‘model’ as usual. Given the failure of the models to predict I have no doubt the butterflies will be fine.
“Could” => disregard study + skip post
Those watching over the institution of science are claiming that some %50 of published material is wrong so it can be said that this is an era of pseudo science where observation has not gelled with understanding.
Just for info for some of you who may be interested, John Casey of SSRC, former NASA scientist and an outspoken sceptic of CAGW has closed SSRC. Hie closing statement follows in email:
Dear Friends,
This email is to advise my many friends and supporters that effective August 21, 2015, the Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC) will be closing. The reason: The SSRC has accomplished its mission.
After years of dedication to the singular objective of alerting our fellow citizens of the need to prepare for the coming cold climate, I believe that goal has finally been achieved.
This is neither a shifting of gears nor applying of the brakes. Rather, it is time to retire the old reliable truck for a new more nimble sports car. In place of the SSRC will be a new one man consulting company which I will activate within a month or so after some much needed time off.
In the planned consulting company, I will be free to say more and do more – outside of the boundaries of what a pure climate research organization like the SSRC should or could do. I intend to provide opinions and analysis on matters pertaining to climate variation and other areas of science, the
space program, and politics that will challenge both the right and the left, the media, the government and especially the scientific establishment.
After concluding my initial climate research in early 2007, my message of a coming cold climate was a voice in the wilderness, given at a time when no national leader or media executive, conservative or liberal, or many ‘friends’ wanted to hear it.
Since then, however, much has been achieved by the SSRC. At the top of the list is the establishment of the best public track record for major climate predictions in the USA.
This highly visible public record was verified by at least one PhD journalist, and echoed by many others. It means that by using the Relational Cycle Theory of solar-driven climate change, the SSRC has created a history of accuracy in major climate predictions that exceeds that of NASA, NOAA and of
course, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN-IPCC).
Added to this track record is helping get the subject of a new potentially dangerous cold climate on the table for all to discuss where none were doing so at a national level before 2007. The SSRC has served as an ‘icebreaker’ for other researchers and leaders to step up and speak about the
politically unspeakable – that global warming has ended and that a new cold climate has begun.
Meeting the SSRC mission was given a significant boost in the past year thanks to Newsmax Media, Inc., when it first began to publish my ‘global cooling’ book, “Dark Winter” in September 2014. The book was an updated, reorganized version of my first book from 2011 titled, “Cold Sun.”
Newsmax followed up a few months later with a one hour documentary on “Dark Winter.” This TV program has now been viewed by millions of Americans.
Along the way, independent videographers, news people, and numerous blog sites have posted my Op-Eds or videos or radio interviews from some of the hundreds of presentations or interviews I have given. In so doing, the SSRC message has reached countless people around the world via the web. By 2009,
the SSRC had already become the leading online source for information on the new cold epoch.
The capstone measurement of the attainment of the SSRC mission came in the first week in this month when “Dark Winter” reached the status of ‘number 1’ best seller in the ‘climate change’ category at Amazon.com. Even before that week, it had already been in and out of the number 1 spot
in the categories of Public Policy, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Earth Sciences, and Weather. Hopefully it will stay near the top during the coming year as the book’s message is passed onto others. In any case, the people have made it clear – they want to hear the truth about the climate. The SSRC
has succeeded in bringing it to them.
Over the years, the SSRC has regularly spread the word that the Sun, not mankind, was the dominant force behind climate change. We have provided all the evidence of such through numerous press releases, research papers both in-house and from others, letters to government leaders, or especially
through the SSRC’s Global Climate Status Report (GCSR). Helping meet this communication objective required a team of brave scientists called in on a periodic basis. The list of scientists and organizations at my side during the past years is lengthy. They are found on the covers of “Cold Sun,”
“Dark Winter,” and in the “Opinions” pages for the SSRC and the GCSR at the SSRC web site at: (www.spaceandscience.net).
Clearly, among the many who worked with me at the SSRC, there was one who did so on a relatively constant basis – Dr. Ole Humlum. It has been my great honor during this time to have had the unhesitating assistance of Dr. Humlum, as the courageous Co-Editor of the GCSR. He is a Professor of Physical
Geology, a geomorphologist and and a glaciologist at the University of Oslo, Norway, as well as a great human being. The GCSR would not have been published without him.
Another feat of the SSRC was insuring that those with science degrees have been provided an outlet for stating that they believe a new cold climate has begun. This was done though the Global Cooling Awareness Project (GCAP) at the SSRC. I will try to keep this list alive in the new consulting
company, though I suspect the coming cold will obviate its need in the near future.
The SSRC has also led the way in conducting geophysical research related to solar hibernations. This has been aided by the International Earthquake and Volcano Research Center (IEVPC), the ongoing sister company of the SSRC. This geophysics company has been co-managed with Dr. Dong Choi, its
honorable and uniquely talented Director of Research. The SSRC has been the US leader for advising our government and our people that concurrent with the new cold climate, we are about to see our worst earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in over 200 years. For example, an increased geophysical threat
alert was sent to the US government by the SSRC in conjunction with the IEVPC on June 5, 2015, for the entire US West Coast, South Carolina, and in particular for the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ).
Most importantly, the SSRC could not have accomplished its mission without the active participation of the many thousands of good people who joined with me in the quest to tell the truth about the climate. This was especially so during the early difficult years when frequent attempts were made to
‘shoot the messenger,’ by conservatives, progressives, members of the media, and a hostile scientific establishment.
Nonetheless, the SSRC has finally accomplished its mission. The next phase of my efforts to speak the truth is just beginning.
You all have my eternal thanks for your past support and advice.
Best Regards,
John L. Casey
President, Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC)
The most mischievous word is “drought”. As in what drought? Eighteen months ago we had one of the wettest winters on record with rivers bursting their banks and people dying. We’ve had quite a lot of very wet summer too. So I ask again, what drought?
We’re already losing a lot due to the widespread use of lawn chemicals.
What do windmill farms do to butterflies?
I doubt windmills are big buttefly killers.
But I do know that Interstate Highway-10 (I-10) across southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico does to the migrating Monarch butterflies trying to get to northern Mexico’s mountains every fall.
It ain’t pretty. I clean a few off the front of my car whenever I make that trip in September or October.
The funniest thing is the Obama White House has gotten on the save the Monarch band wagon. They plan on planting lots of milkweed along I-35 to help guid Monarchs from Minessota to Mexico. I see nothing but lots of dead butterflies smashed on the grills of cars and big rigs in that plan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/21/the-white-house-plan-to-save-the-monarch-butterfly-build-a-butterfly-highway/
there’s a good plan: spread a noxious weed to help an economically insignificant insect.
I ran into a migration of Monarchs once. It was quite ugly when I looked at my car after.
@ur momisugly fossilsage: milkweed is actually a beneficial. You can do a lot worse than a native plant that supports multiple species of animals.
“The overall results suggest that drought-sensitive butterflies are only likely to avoid widespread extinctions if CO2 emission levels are reduced below business-as-usual and, furthermore, this in combination with habitat restoration measures”
Combining fiction and facts to get the grant…
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/db/db451cc550126738b8f31033ede9591fbfe31aaf7c45c9a5775c40e0e871d554.jpg
“Global warming will cause droughts, according to our models.”
“Why?”
“Less moisture because of the heat.”
“But your models rely on a huge increase in atmospheric water content to magnify the much, much smaller effect of CO2. Which will cause more rain.”
“It’s special water- it will only show up in places that don’t need droughts according to our catastrophic models.”
You nailed it! Is there anything good about the planet warming as it comes out of the Little Ice Age?…Anything?
Ice-9 anyone?
No thank you, but Kurt Vonnegut was a great author!
Recently they were predicting a wetter world. I kid you not
Traditional BS! Paris is coming!!
These studies are nonsense. Butterflies are highly adaptable The evolution of the peppered moth is a famous UK case study of a moth whose wings turned black, because at the height of the industrial revolution, all the trees where the moth sheltered were blackened by soot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
Why are butterflies sensitive to drought ??
Or izzit just the drought sensitive butterflies that are.
Is the cabbage white drought sensitive. Let us know when they are extincticated.
I saw a factoid on screen at my bank, the other day, that said that there is no scientific distinction between a butterfly and a moth. No characteristic separates one from the other.
Great; moth is quicker to text.
g
Moths have cilia on their antennae.
The factoid is mostly false. Lepidoptera has something like 30 superfamilies. One of those, Papillionoidea, is called “butterflies.” The Hesperioidea are called “skippers.” The very small Hedyloidea are “moth-butterflies.”
Everything else is a moth.
Should I change banks then ??
g
Eric –
agreed that the studies are nonsense but your example of rapid evolutionary change in citing the Peppered Moth isn’t necessarily killer logic. Some species have great adaptability and/or are dispersing constantly. Others are stuck in a genetic rut – probably because they were very highly successful in a particular specialist environment so the genetic status quo was conserved. They should be looked on as ‘dead end’ species and are probably on their way out anyway, and these are indeed more susceptible to changes such as those in climate. Those are the ones that conservationists -including me -usually concentrate upon. But NONE of the six species studied here come into that category and I think we can discount this work merely upon a reading of the abstract. It’s a make-work project for the scientists, backed by various green interest groups.
My use of the word “evolution” was a hint. I didn’t suggest individual peppered moths learned how to change their wing colour, like a chameleon…
Stop press: Global warming prevents funding drought.
The most amazing FACT is the amount off funding for all this nonsense. Mankind should be more enlightened, all pity to the human race.
Big thanks to Bill Gates for coming out about the uselessness of current alternative technology. The esteemed and pragmatic Bill will be calling for an end to grrenut funding and instead, recommending that the currently wasted money goes to serious and intelligent R & D.
As will his, putting HIS money where his mouth is Good onyer Bill and Melinda! And I presume Warren Buffet?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/26/gates_renewable_energy_cant_do_the_job_gov_should_switch_green_subsidies_into_rd/
Um. ‘There is uncertainty in these projections, which we captured by considering outputs from seventeen different climate models.’ Uncertainty begets further uncertainty begets certainty. I get it. I call your drought and raise you three droughts.
I live in Southern Ontario in the country and the Monarch Butterfly has all but disappeared in the last 2-3 years. Can’t be climate change (too sudden) but is it a normal trend or has something happened. The previous 8 years we had hundreds of them.
Plant Milkweed to see them return. It worked for me in IL.
I too live in Southern Ontario and I am seeing plenty of Monarchs this year. Many more than last year. Plus, there is more milkweed in the countryside than you can shake a stick at. Here’s hoping a recent decline in numbers is reversing. You are welcome to view some photos I took about 5 years ago in Stoney Creek, Ontario, a small vignette of the huge numbers accumulated on that day. https://goo.gl/photos/NpVJRbpd9jv1AHPZ9
Thanks, those are great! I should show my doctor those. He is a kid who lives in the city and when I told him I was a climate sceptic, he hit me with the Monarch extinction thing and gave me few shameful comments about my lack of concern for nature and future generations. No more than my car mechanic did though…
And Dawt.. oh my, don’t we all have stories like that to tell. Why, just this week my wife complimented someone on some exotic bamboo planting in her yard, only to be told ‘Well, that’s climate change. Plenty of things grow here that didn’t before.’ Laugh/puke.
Those are great photos. Thanks for that. I have lots of milkweed but no butterflies. Maybe I’m not calling them right.
Thanks Steve. You’ve not seen my show ‘Monarch Dynasty’, where we grow beards, cover ourselves in pheromones and flowery camo?
heysuess @ur momisugly 3:47
“exotic bamboo”
Maybe, but have a look at this: Fallopia japonica, aka Japanese knotweed
John, in the past, I’ve done a little reading on that invasive plant – I’ve seen what I believe to be it growing along the famed trout river the Beaverkill in New York state – but I don’t know because it was my wife’s experience that I related. I never saw the plants. I hope it wasn’t Japanese Knotweed!!
Sometimes, extinction is the best solution.
Mother Gaia knows that, because she does it all the time when necessary.
Can’t have inefficient resource consuming critters, wasting resources that other critters could use to better effect. That’s HER idea ; not mine.
There was a case in Southern California some years back where a freeway project was re-routed around a field, through the middle of which, it had been planned to go.
The redirection cost tens of millions of dollars.
The problem was that this field was the home to some flies, that were not too abundant; well it was the only place on the planet where those flies lived, and the freeway was going to separate them into two populations (maybe) which would be a disaster for them.
Now we all feel for wild critters; but flies !!
We are talking here about #1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, 1005, 1006, 1007, 1008 . Maybe they all have nicknames too.
Yes there were precisely 8 of these flies in the known universe.
Now I think that problem could have been fixed at a lower cost, just with a class of fifth graders and a gallon of ice cream, plus a few fly swatters.
Sometimes, nature’s way is best.
g
I can shake a stick at a LOT of milkweed!
Are you sure about that calculation?
Some loss is due to deforestation of wintering habitat in Mexico
Ya, Jim, also, I fear, the widespread use of ‘Roundup Ready’ crops in the U.S. midwest. We’ll see how all that turns out, but in the meantime, I am ‘for’ encouraging farmers to leave a small portion of their growing land for wild growth such as milkweed to help the migrants breed on the way down and up. (Pretty sure that’s how it works with the Monarchs.)
Dr. Steele, I have also seen a big jump in the number of fireflies (lightning bugs) in recent years to about the same shows as I remember seeing in the 60’s. Do you have any info on them?
Dawtgtomis, In California we don’t have lightning bugs that light up, only their glowworms. So I don’t have any direct observations. As a kid I caught them in Alabama and Vermont but rarely saw them in eastern Massachusetts. Most larvae feed on decaying vegetation so I would suspect it is a matter accumulation and moisture. But you have sparked my curiosity.
Where I live there are fewer and fewer butterflies every year. It can’t be the fault of a drought as we have never had one. I’ve also noticed that there are fewer and fewer flies and wasps, and other insects. I think this might have more to do with the fact that the climate is cooling.
I live in Los Angeles and have noticed no discernible drop in butterflies in my garden, either this year or last.
The butterflies are claimed to be drought sensitive.
Therefor, the Global Warming hotcoldwetdry function resolves to drought.
I think I am starting to see how this whole thing works.
You got it! Obamascience posits that drought now, is not the same drought that happened before humans infected this lovely blue gem of the cosmos and raped the planet of it’s treasures to burn in their ovens of ecological doom.
[sarc factor two, Mr. Sulu]
@dawtg, (sarc factortwo, Mr Sulu!) , can I use that one ? Thanks
My pleasure asybot, but I got to thinkin’… maybe it was Chekov he used to give that command.
That might have been Capt. James T. Kirk speaking.
Doubleplus good prolethink.
well hell…if they’re all going to die by 2100 anyway
I expect to die by 2100, anyway.
Auto
Pessimist! 😉
Confirmation! It’s worse than we thought! Auto is not going to see any monarch butterflies in 2100.
SHUT DOWN ALL THE COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS, IMMEDIATELY!!!
.
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Wait up… I don’t think I’ll be seeing any either. However, I will be doing some good for the environment, pushing up daisies and all that.
H.R.- I plan to be converted to CO2 and basic minerals by means of oxidation. Unless its illegal by then.
It’s too bad butterflies don’t have wings so they could fly to areas with more moisture.
Well they do, but they are for collecting solar energy! Isn’t progressive science great!
and they eat fossil fuels!
So, if all of the predictions coming out of the thoroughly discredited AGW models are true…Bad Things will happen. And this is all you got?
Get a life, ummm, job!
Yet another ‘study’ that amounts to blatant climate propaganda.
Not to be too pedantic but that’s a moth in the image at the top. 😮
Wrong. Cabbage Butterfly.
Ding!
http://zireaux.com/immortalmuse/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/cabbagewhite_-up-shenandoah-np-va-7jun06-bbouton1.jpg
correct.
What? I thought the extra CO2 would increase the food supply for the butterflies. I’m cutting my lawn every week now cause its growing so fast.
Are these the same people that predicted no more snow in the UK ?
“reducing habitat fragmentation …”
OK. let’s start with the Upper West Side and return that to forest land, then we can take large chunks of San Mateo and Marin Counties, and kick out all the humans, then I suggest that every other block of homes in Annandale and Arlington be demolished. We can mobilize FEMA to help displaced persons relocate. After all, these are the 3 most ardent sets of zip-clusters for people who believe that government action is necessary, so the cooperation should be close to 100% …
I’ll volunteer to be acting director of the project, I’ll work for $1 a year for the next 3 years as long as I get my phone call from the White House by 5PM Friday
Mark
I’ll be your Deputy – if needed.
Marine culture – I can sort – I can take decisions.
[Popular . . . Ummmm . . . . . ]
E – if need – from our leader.
Auto.
Well, the study charts response and recovery from drought events of miscellaneous butterfly populations.
I guess that is ok, it makes sense that a drought would affect the populations.
I don’t see how they got to CO2 causes widespread drought.
Further – more CO2 will cause plant water conservation – even if there was a drought the plants may have more available water. The butterflies (at least the larva) presumably get all their water from plants so they should be pretty much unaffected.
They use the RCP8.5 data to create a worst case scenario. Perhaps the US should stop funding the IPCC until they develop realistic scenarios.
The good news is this doesn’t seem to have been funded with US tax dollars. It appears only British tax puunds were wasted.
Well I guess they are learning. Better make those predictions far enough into the future that you will be retired (or dead) before the predicted date.
Oh cut it out! we can’t stuff any more canaries in the coal mines because of the polar bears running around everywhere!
This might be relevant.
yes, yes it is
Does the climate doom ever end? They must be giving out prizes for who can fabricate the best scar scenario.
The 3 different species “whites” are all abundant around farms and feed of members of the mustard family, plants that like open sunny area. The only threat to those species has been changes in agricultural practices.
The Speckle Wood is becoming another bad climate icon. Parmesan’s 1999 paper highlighted a very deceptive graph showing the species was being pushed northward, hiding the fact that others had pusblished it had been abundant in Scotland in the 1800s
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/89260036.png
I discussed that graphic deception in the first comment of this WUWT post
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/08/the-ultimate-irony-camille-parmesan-argues-texas-textbooks-need-to-get-the-facts-straight-on-global-warming/
When I am somewhere I like to move to where there are the fewest of others of the same species.
I suspect that animals including butterflies like to go to places that aren’t already full of butterflies working over the same flowers.
So I am not at all surprised that butterflies move to places they weren’t at before.
For example when plants live on sloping surfaces; aka mountains, the number of plants tend to diminish as you go higher, for various reasons. One of those reasons is that it is already crowded where they are at now.
so when a plant blows away its seeds; say a dandelion for example, some of them will blow up the hill and some of them will blow down the hill.
The seeds that blow down the hill are likely to land on the leaves of some other plant that is already there, so they don’t land on the soil, and critters will find them and eat them.
But the seeds that blow uphill, are more likely to land on an unoccupied piece of ground and take root.
So they tend to migrate uphill for no reason at all, other than the space is unoccupied already.
No climate change postulation is necessary to explain why living things tend to move to where they ain’t already.
The Bushmen of Africa, who populated the rest of the planet, didn’t just up and say; “let’s all move to Uzbekistan. ”
They were actually just following some animals they could hunt for food, and didn’t realize they were actually going anywhere.
You have to be grasping at straws to claim that it is climate that moves things around.
Not that things don’t move, if climate shifts; but they aren’t all just looking for 72 deg. F and 280 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.
g
Jim – you’re dead right. I haven’t read this paper, but prima facie it’s nonsense – must be based on a heck of a lot of dubious assumptions. All of the species mentioned exist very widely in Europe in both wetter and drier climates than in UK and it doesn’t seem that they’ve been picked for any known sensitivity to drought. As you say, the three Whites are attached to agricultural weeds and are in constant ‘dispersal’ mode as with so many that feed on plants of disturbed ground. There are big invasions of the UK every year from outside of the country for two of the species and these would surely continue in a drier country also. The only species which it could be argued is attached to damper conditions is the Speckled Wood (It likes shady situs for its in-flight camouflage), and this has an interesting history. As you rightly say, it was abundant over most of the country in the early nineteenth century, just as it is today (it misses out open heath and moorland), but between-times it became something of a rarity, being absent from large swathes of the country for a very long time. I don’t think anybody has tried to pin that on climate change, as to do so would negate the uniqueness of the present climate trends.
What utter bollocks. Even if there were “more droughts” the idea that they would need to evolve is ridiculous.
What utter bollocks.
=============
exactly. butterflies don’t need to evolve to deal with changing climate. their ancestors already did that over the 130 millions years butterflies have been around. a whole lot longer than humans.
the genes for drought are simply suppressed until such time as they are required by the next generation. then, when the drought is over, the genes will again be suppressed.
there will be butterflies long after the last climate scientist has long gone extinct.
I have noticed an almost complete absence of some of our more colourful butterfly species such as Red Admiral, Peacock and Tortoiseshell here in South Wales. Cabbage Whites, on the other hand are in great profusion. My wife and I have been observing Buddleias ( the butterfly bush) which, are currently in magnificent bloom ( thanks no doubt to extra Co2) and are normally swarming with butterflies and have not seen even one butterfly on them. They appear to have been deserted. Bees on the other hand are having a great time.
Your bees are thriving. My neighbor’s bees froze to death the last two winters. (Central US)
Same here in North Bristol UK, saw a hedgehog last night, first for 5 plus years