Saving the eastern monarch butterfly
Simon Fraser University researchers are playing a key role in guiding conservation efforts to protect a declining butterfly population. The eastern monarch butterfly, an important pollinating species known for its distinct yellow-orange and black colour, is diminishing due to the loss of the milkweed plant its primary food source.
Researchers analyzed current conservation strategies and recommended changes to how and where declining milkweed can be restored, based on assessments of climate and butterfly migration. Their study is published today in Frontiers in Environmental Science.
SFU PhD student Rodrigo Solis-Sosa and professor Sean Cox, from the School of Resource and Environmental Management, led the study with biological sciences professor Arne Mooers. The trio collaborated with Christina Semeniuk, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER) and study co-writer Maxim Larrivée, director of the Insectarium de Montréal, one o
Credit: Rodrigo Solis-Sosa
Simon Fraser University researchers are playing a key role in guiding conservation efforts to protect a declining butterfly population. The eastern monarch butterfly, an important pollinating species known for its distinct yellow-orange and black colour, is diminishing due to the loss of the milkweed plant its primary food source.
Researchers analyzed current conservation strategies and recommended changes to how and where declining milkweed can be restored, based on assessments of climate and butterfly migration. Their study is published today in
Frontiers in Environmental Science.
SFU PhD student Rodrigo Solis-Sosa and professor Sean Cox, from the School of Resource and Environmental Management, led the study with biological sciences professor Arne Mooers. The trio collaborated with Christina Semeniuk, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER) and study co-writer Maxim Larrivée, director of the Insectarium de Montréal, one of the fi
Authors: Dan Greenberg, Postdoctoral research associate, Simon Fraser University; Anna Hargreaves, Professor of Conservation Ecology & Evolution, McGill University; Arne Mooers, Professor, Biodiversity, Phylogeny & Evolution, Simon Fraser University, and Brian Leung, Associate professor, McGill University
There is real and justified concern about the state of our world’s ecosystems. Satellite imagery reveals few places left untouched by humanity. As the global human population and our overall consumption continue to grow in concert with the upheaval of our climate systems, the outlook for non-human species seems grim.
In response, scientists have tried to measure the state of global biodiversity. One of the biggest impact efforts has been the Living Planet Index (LPI), an ambitious project that compiles population trends for more than 4,000 vertebrate species around the world.
TORONTO Although the global havoc wreaked by the coronavirus appeared to take precedence over all else in 2020, the issue of climate change didn’t just disappear, even if it did take a backseat. Despite a dip in greenhouse gas emissions due to the pandemic, the Earth is still on course to warm up by more than 3 C by the end of the century, according to the United Nations Environment Programme’s recent annual assessment of emissions levels. While that may not seem like a lot, consider that the planet has already experienced more frequent draughts, wildfires, and extreme storms since warming a little more than 1 C since pre-industrial times.