From Nature
Researchers are trying to shift Mexico’s oyamel firs to higher elevations to help them weather warming temperatures.
Monarch butterflies alight on a tree in their wintering grounds in Mexico.Credit: JHVEPhoto/Alamy
To save dwindling populations of Eastern monarch butterflies, researchers in Mexico are trying something controversial: moving hundreds of fir trees 400 metres up a mountain. Their goal is to help the trees, which serve as winter habitat for the migratory butterflies, keep up with the changing climate.
Forest geneticist Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero at the Michoacan University of Saint Nicholas of Hidalgo (UMSNH) in Morelia, Mexico, has been relocating oyamel firs (Abies religiosa) in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, about 100 kilometres northwest of Mexico City, for the past 3 years. A study reporting the results of the experiment is currently under review at a scientific journal.
For nearly two decades, the idea of ‘assisted migration’ — moving species to new areas to rescue them from rising temperatures — has stirred controversy among ecologists. Opponents worry that species introduced into other regions could spread so much that they threaten organisms already living there1.
But in the case of the oyamel fir trees, some scientists think the risk is worth it. “This is an example of a good experiment,” says Sally Aitken, a forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
Fall of a monarchy
Over the past 20 years, the number of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) in North America has dropped by more than 80%, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit group in Tucson, Arizona.
The decline has affected both the Eastern monarch population, which migrates from the northern and central United States and southern Canada to Mexico each autumn, and the smaller, Western monarch population, which migrates across western US states and winters in coastal California. In June, US officials are expected to announce whether these two populations will be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Rising temperatures and habitat destruction at the butterflies’ breeding sites in the United States and Canada are the major drivers of monarch declines, says Karen Oberhauser, a conservation biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Extreme climate events threaten the Eastern monarch butterfly’s habitats at their wintering sites in Mexico, Oberhauser says. In 2016, for example, a severe storm damaged thousands of fir trees in the mountains of central Mexico. The loss of habitat, followed by freezing temperatures, killed 31–38%2 of the monarchs.
And Sáenz-Romero has estimated that rising temperatures will shrink the habitat suited to oyamel fir trees in Mexico nearly 70% between 2025 and 20353.
Read the full story here
HT/Michael M
This will assuredly harm the butterfly. That is the consequence of allowing our idiot universities to teach climate nonsense to the young. Given the shrieking alarmism, this only makes sense.
The TRUTH is what has consequences in the real world.
We have to WIN. We have to wake up the university life sciences departments.
Do Monicul butterflies always nest on these t trees What happens if they cannot find a milkweed tree.
Also my understanding is that its not the original butterfly which completes the long journey, but its offspring.
So if no milkweed trees will any other tree do ?. True no poison in the system to protect them.
mje
Milkweed is for the larvae to feed on, about four generations journey north during the summer but the last generation makes it all the way back to Mexico.
Here in the sub-tropical areas of the North Island f New Zealand, the Monarch Butterfly population seems to be doing just fine. When we lived in the UK (outer London) we noted a thriving Monarch population there, too. So much so that Monarch caterpillars and butterfly habitats are often sold by education supply businesses to junior-class teachers to provide the children the brilliant experience of observing the caterpillars created their cacoons then hatch.
looked up your american milkweeds
nothing like that here
wondering what the hell they are using for food downunder?
I have honeysuckle flowering but not much else
the staggering heat the last few days has burnt most plants inc corn n beans to a crisp
really really crisp and dry
in 8hrs after being saturated this morning;-(
All seems pretty weird to me. Two things to bear in mind whenever you see stories like this about insects.
First thing, they produce a lot of eggs. A heck of a lot. Hundreds, and sometimes thousands. That means that, over time, more than 98-99 percent of the offspring don’t make it to breed themselves. So counting monarchs, or any insect, to get an idea of how well the insect is doing, can be very misleading. The number of insects one year is a very poor indicator for the number you will see next year. It might be twenty times, or a twentieth, and means zilch. It’s not like monitoring the population of Eagles or Tigers. Huge fluctuations in numbers are absolutely normal, and rushing to any conclusion, let alone indulging in the nonsense represented by this story, is just crazy.
The second thing (and as a Brit I know very little about Monarchs or Milkweeds, so I’m open to correction) is that here we are looking at a rapidly dispersing species, quite likely with a diverse gene pool. They get all over the place (even occasionally seen in UK), and fly great distances. They are constantly turning up in new places, colonise (sometimes just temporarily) widely, and I think it safe to say that they could not in any reasonable judgement be described as endangered. Looks to me like their distribution is really limited solely by their close association with milkweeds. I would guess that Milkweeds are reasonably classed as weeds, that is, colonists of disturbed and marginal ground, and, just like many butterflies that are associated with weeds (for instance, the several white Pierids that eat cruciferous plants like cabbage) they are always dispersing, finding the temporary locations where their foodplants are. So, if you want Monarchs, plant Milkweeds. It is hard to imagine the stupendous climate changes that would be needed to exterminate Monarchs. They may be eliminated locally, and then appear again after a few years. Nothing at all to worry about.
It’s somewhat more complicated than that, milkweed abundance has an effect on breeding but is widely distributed. However the fir trees where they overwinter are much more narrowly distributed and loss of them could have a much bigger effect on the population as a whole.
Some people are actually doing something about the decline of Monarch butterflies by planting milkweed. No models, sketchy papers, or grants needed.
A search on “milkweed for monarchs” returns quite a few results. Here’s a link to a representative result.
https://www.gardenbetty.com/planting-milkweed-for-the-monarchs/
Sure beats the heck out of hand-wringing.
I’m an arborist and agronomist and have been on hand to witness the transplantation of trees from one site to another. The risk involved in transplanting trees at all is considerable – unless the trees are no more than an inch in diameter because then their roots can easily be dug up with 90% of the roots going with the trees. But if they’re thinking of digging up young trees at about 4 or 5 years of age then even with a giant earth moving machine that is designed to pick up the tree with a major portion of it’s roots there’s still a 50-50 chance of the trees surviving the transplant. And even if they survive that it’ll still take them another few years to regain their vitality and be a benefit to the butterflies. If they’re thinking of transplanting mature trees then the probability of success drops precipitously. A 10 year old tree, on the average, has a 5% chance of surviving the transplant. And assuming it will return to it’s previous level of vitality that should take another 10 years or so to accomplish. Somehow I don’t think they understand that transplantation of trees is fraught with all kinds of risks and its not like one has a flower in a flower pot and pops it out of the pot and drops it into an accommodating hole in one’s garden. It doesn’t work that way.
According to the paper they were actually planting seedlings.
“In fact, the researchers were able to shift more than 750 seedlings up a mountainside by up to 400 metres, as long as they planted the young trees under the shade of neighbouring bushes. This protected the seedlings from sunlight and extreme temperatures, says Arnulfo Blanco-García, a forest ecologist at UMSNH, and a study co-author.”
Those have been planted over the last three years and I would think that forest ecologists do know something about the process. It typically reaches about 12′ in 10 years.
Some people are actually doing something about the decline of Monarch butterflies by planting milkweed. No models, sketchy papers, or grants needed.
No no no, we must overturn capitalism and democracy, live on intermittent power and ask permission for a procreation license in order to save the Monarchs. A shallow sad and bleak existence for all remaining humans (except the high priest hypocrites) will make everything better.