If you happen to have a run-in with a monarch butterfly in the near future, consider yourself lucky. They’re about to be listed as endangered species.

The Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, Xerces Society and renowned monarch scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to extend Endangered Species Act protection for the monarch butterfly. The agency will now review the status of the monarchs, a process that takes about one year.

Monarch butterfly populations have declined by a staggering 90 percent in the last 20 years, a drop that the groups say is beyond significant. “Our petition is a scientific and legal blueprint for creating the protection that the monarch so direly needs, and we are gratified that the agency has now taken this vital first step in a timely fashion,” George Kimbrell, Senior Attorney for Center for Food Safety said in a statement. “We will continue to do everything we can to ensure monarchs are protected.”

Experts agree that the monarch butterfly is experiencing such a decline due largely in part to the planting of genetically modified crops. Most genetically modified crops being planted in the Midwest, where most of the monarchs are born, are resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup, the glyphosate-based herbicide that kills off milkweed, the monarch caterpillar’s only food.

“The population has declined from a recorded high of approximately 1 billion butterflies in the mid-1990s to only 35 million butterflies last winter, the lowest number ever recorded,” the Center for Food Safety said in a statement. “The overall population shows a steep and statistically significant decline of 90 percent over 20 years. In addition to herbicide use with genetically engineered crops, monarchs are also threatened by global climate change, drought and heat waves, other pesticides, urban sprawl and logging on their Mexican wintering grounds.”

And the groups note that rising global temperatures could make the monarch’s homes, both winters in Mexico and summers in the U.S., unsuitable to sustain the species in the very near future.

According to the CFS, monarchs need “a very large population size to be resilient to threats from severe weather events and predation.” A whopping 50 percent of monarchs winter population in Mexico can be eaten by birds and mammals in just one winter. And extreme weather conditions can also be devastating: “a single winter storm in 2002 killed an estimated 500 million monarchs — 14 times the size of the entire current population,” CFS explained.

“We are extremely pleased that the federal agency in charge of protecting our nation’s wildlife has recognized the dire situation of the monarch,” said Sarina Jepsen, the Xerces Society’s endangered species director. “Protection as a threatened species will enable extensive monarch habitat recovery on both public and private lands.”

Monarchs, like bees, are important pollinators vital to the health of our food chain. Honeybee populations are also currently being threatened by similar environmental hazards.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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The endangered butterfly has become an ideal  insect for scientists measuring the damage of climate change

A new study published in Ecological Entomology shows some species of butterflies adapt much better than others to warming temperatures, especially in mountain landscapes.

Which are most at risk? It appears butterfly species which emerge later in the year or fly higher in the different elevations of a mountain range in central Spain have evolved to reproduce in a shorter window of time, and as a result, may fare worse than those that emerge over a longer period of time.

“We’re already expecting localized extinctions of about one third of butterfly species, so we need to understand how climate change will affect those that survive,” says Javier G. Illan, with the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University.

Illan’s group of researchers working at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid studied flight patterns of 32 butterfly species for five years at different elevations in a Mediterranean mountain range. They noted the delays in flight dates that occurred as a result of elevation change.

Butterflies are ultra sensitive to climate change and therefore good models for understanding the broader scope of ecological effects linked to insects in terms of pollination and herbivory. In fact, their flight dates are said to be good indicators of future responses to climate change .

Meanwhile, the Brown Argus has defied the odds. The rare British butterfly with orange and white spots near its wingtips is thriving rather than disappearing as a result of extreme temperatures as predicted.

As reported by Scientific American, the insects are on the move and expanding their range northwards some 40 miles, according to the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. This means they are no longer solely dependent upon a single plant species, the Rockrose, which grows on south-facing slopes and absorbs the warmth the butterfly’s caterpillars require.

The Rockrose plant’s choice is cool weather, hosting caterpillars on the underside of leaves on south-facing hillsides, but balmier summer conditions has prompted the butterfly to warm up to new plants such as the Dove’s Foot Cranesbill.

This ability to adapt and expand north shows promise for some species. But according to ecologists, large range retractions in the south cannot be counterbalanced by the expansions in the north. In fact, About ten percent of all of Europe’s butterflies face extinction due to climate change, along with loss of grassland habitat from intensive farming and abandonment of traditional farming in Europe, forest fires and the expansion of tourism.

The same culprits threaten 14% of dragonflies and 11% of saprophytic beetles, according to the European Red List report for the European commission. Among the species listed as critically endangered – the striking Madeiran large white butterfly not spotted on the island of Madeira in twenty years; and the Macedonian Grayling which has suffered habitat loss due to quarrying.

Recently, Richard Pearson, a scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, cited the Red List in a New York Times Opinion page, warning us that a mass extinction is afoot. Some 20,000 species of animals and plants around the globe are deemed high risks and such a rapid loss of so many has only occurred five times in the past 540 million years. Around 65 million years ago, the last mass extinction wiped out the dinosaurs.

Writing about the pending loss of life on the planet, Pearson, who is the author of Driven to Extinction: The Impact of Climate Change on Biodiversity, suggested “this should keep us awake at night.”

He also urged us to invest in ecosystem services considered public goods. “We need to put a realistic value on nature, and we need effective environmental legislation that protects entire ecosystems.”

The post Some Butterflies Doomed, Others Thrive, with Climate Change appeared first on EcoSalon.

 

Deep inside a 1,300-hectare rainforest reserve in Ecuador, mere three hours northwest of the equator, you will find Mashpi Lodge, an eco-friendly hotel bursting with activities to teach you about this unique mountain bioclimate and its wildlife – which include cycling along a high wire, listening to frogs and making chocolate.

This being Earth Month, it’s only appropriate that the lodge opened this week for the first guests to enjoy the rich flora and fauna of the bioreserve: colorful butterflies, monkeys, birds, pumas, and orchids galore.

To experience the forest first hand, you can travel along the forest canopy in the “Aerial Tram” – an open-air gondola car – giving you a monkey’s eye view of the treetops and their inhabitants. As you sit in a swiveling chair, for a 360-degree perspective, you can listen to the resident biologist make sense of it all.

Or, for those preferring solitude, climb a ladder and sit on a forest platform, or check out the hummingbird viewpoint (blink and you’ll miss them – they’re the smallest animals, and fastest birds, in the world). Adrenalin junkies can take a zipwire ride through the primeval landscape, or ride an aerial bicycle, designed for two, along a 655-foot-long cable; then cool off in a waterfall. Creatures of the night can go on a nocturnal safari (guided; you don’t want to get lost in the dark jungle). Reptile lovers can learn about frog songs and snake secrets. Or you can just sit in bed and watch it all.

The 22 guestrooms are furnished in a simple, contemporary style, with warm tones, wood and floor-to-ceiling-windows looking onto the rainforest; all have WIFI; suites and bathtubs with views (other rooms have showers). All are TV-less; it’s in a communal area – after all, you’ve got a live-action nature film going on outside your room. There are also outside terraces to tune into the jungle sounds, with secluded yoga-perfect areas; and an extensive library, where you can hear talks from experts.

In the restaurant, ingredients used are garnered from the forest – plantain and chocolate – or locally-grown organic: mandarinas, guavas, naranjillas, squeezed into freshly-made juices. You can gather your own, too – yucca, bananas, palm hearts and coffee, or make cocoa beans into their end delicacies, ripe for eating. After all that culinary excitement, you’ll need to chill out. The spa has a jacuzzi open to the outside and a massage room with treatments featuring jungle ingredients such as earth, stones, herbs and leaves. Swimming is wild, in the rivers.

Mashpi Lodge is working closely with the local community. A quarter of the staff (80% from the surrounding area) will own a stake in the project. As well as being socially responsible, hydroelectric power will be used soon.

Rates from $1,296 per person including tax, transfers from Quito with visits to archaeological sites and museum, and lunch at a volcanic crater, en route; all meals at lodge; guided daily excursions and activities within reserve; rubber boots, rain ponchos and binoculars for your jungle walkabouts (this is a rain forest, after all).

Photos: Mashpi Lodge

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

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