Each fall, millions of monarch butterflies from across the Eastern United States use a time-compensated sun compass to direct their navigation south, traveling up to 2,000 miles to an overwintering site in a specific grove of fir trees in central Mexico. Scientists have long been fascinated by the biological mechanisms that allow successive generations of these delicate creatures to travel such long distances to a small region roughly 300 square miles in size.
To unlock the genetic and regulatory elements important for this remarkable journey, neurobiologists at UMass Medical School are the first to sequence and analyze the monarch butterfly genome.
"Migratory monarchs are at least two generations removed from those that made the journey the previous fall," said Steven M. Reppert, MD, professor and chair of neurobiology and senior author of the study. "They have never been to the overwintering sites before, and have no relatives to follow on their way. There must be a genetic program underlying the butterflies' migratory behavior. We want to know what that program is, and how it works."
Understanding the relationship between genes, behavior and physiological adaptations in monarchs may also lead to new insights into similar connections in humans. Circadian clocks, for instance, are a crucial component in the complex time-compensated sun compass system governing a monarch's ability to navigate long distances, and are now understood to play a pivotal role in human biology. Temporal variations in hormone levels, pharmacokinetics and disease processes, such as the increased incidence of heart attacks in the early morning, reveal the prominent influence of the circadian clock on human physiology. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of the circadian clock has already helped reveal how clock gene mutations contribute to disorders of the timing of sleep, and new insights could illuminate how clock gene mutations contribute to diseases such as major depression and seasonal affective disorder.
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Showing posts with label monarch butterfly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monarch butterfly. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Monarch butterflies face plight of flight in hot Texas
For the monarch butterflies, life is complicated enough even in a good year. Now, though, they’ve got to deal with Texas.
The monarchs in recent weeks have been beating their way south and west across eastern North America, riding winds a thousand feet above the ground, covering 25 miles or more every day. Now they’ve reached a vast area in Texas stricken by drought and charred by wildfires.
The butterflies are on their way to Mexico. They come from as far north as Winnipeg, Manitoba, and as far east as the islands of Maine. Many take a well-flapped route down the Eastern Seaboard before veering across the Gulf Coast. If they can make it through the gantlet of Texas, they will cross the Rio Grande and converge on a few acres of forest in mountains about 60 miles west of Mexico City. There, they spend the winter roosting, thick as quilts, on the branches of oyamel fir trees. In spring, they’ll head back north.
But it’s not clear how many will make it this year to their Mexican retreat, or what kind of condition they’ll be in when they get there.
They need water. They need flowers. They need nectar. The monarch butterfly is a hardy and vigorous insect, but whatever compels it to migrate south does not tolerate much flexibility in the itinerary. Going through Texas on the way to Mexico is what they’re hard-wired to do. And Texas is scorched.
“They’re going to be encountering a thousand miles of hell as they go through a nearly waterless, flowerless, nectarless landscape,” said Chip Taylor, an insect ecologist at the University of Kansas and the director of the nonprofit organization Monarch Watch.
The migrating monarchs must overcome a host of challenges to their way of life, and their numbers have dropped in recent years. A critical problem is the widespread adoption throughout North America of herbicide-tolerant corn and soybeans, said Lincoln Brower, a professor of biology at Sweet Brier College who has been studying monarchs for decades.
These genetically modified crops enable farmers to spray herbicides on their fields and wipe out weeds without hurting the corn or soybeans. But the milkweeds that are eradicated are crucial to the life cycle of the butterflies. Scorned by farmers, milkweeds are a diverse genus of plants, with more than 120 species identified, that co-evolved over the millennia with the butterflies.
“We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of acres of land that are virtually sterilized except for human food crops,” Brower said.
Conservation groups have encouraged people to plant milkweeds to help the monarchs. And in Mexico, where illegal logging has damaged some of the butterfly’s winter habitat, the Washington-based conservation organization American Forests has teamed with other groups to plant more than 900,000 trees in the past five years, said American Forests spokeswoman Lea Sloan.
But nothing is constant in any ecosystem. Climate change is driving wetter winters that leave soggy butterflies exposed to cold snaps, Taylor said. The butterfly population that migrated north this year was smaller than normal, he said, as is the number heading south. As they fly through southern Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and into northern Mexico, they are encountering areas hit by what the U.S. government rates as “exceptional drought.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/can-monarch-butterflies-make-it-through-texas/2011/10/07/gIQAEt8ySL_story.html
The monarchs in recent weeks have been beating their way south and west across eastern North America, riding winds a thousand feet above the ground, covering 25 miles or more every day. Now they’ve reached a vast area in Texas stricken by drought and charred by wildfires.
The butterflies are on their way to Mexico. They come from as far north as Winnipeg, Manitoba, and as far east as the islands of Maine. Many take a well-flapped route down the Eastern Seaboard before veering across the Gulf Coast. If they can make it through the gantlet of Texas, they will cross the Rio Grande and converge on a few acres of forest in mountains about 60 miles west of Mexico City. There, they spend the winter roosting, thick as quilts, on the branches of oyamel fir trees. In spring, they’ll head back north.
But it’s not clear how many will make it this year to their Mexican retreat, or what kind of condition they’ll be in when they get there.
They need water. They need flowers. They need nectar. The monarch butterfly is a hardy and vigorous insect, but whatever compels it to migrate south does not tolerate much flexibility in the itinerary. Going through Texas on the way to Mexico is what they’re hard-wired to do. And Texas is scorched.
“They’re going to be encountering a thousand miles of hell as they go through a nearly waterless, flowerless, nectarless landscape,” said Chip Taylor, an insect ecologist at the University of Kansas and the director of the nonprofit organization Monarch Watch.
The migrating monarchs must overcome a host of challenges to their way of life, and their numbers have dropped in recent years. A critical problem is the widespread adoption throughout North America of herbicide-tolerant corn and soybeans, said Lincoln Brower, a professor of biology at Sweet Brier College who has been studying monarchs for decades.
These genetically modified crops enable farmers to spray herbicides on their fields and wipe out weeds without hurting the corn or soybeans. But the milkweeds that are eradicated are crucial to the life cycle of the butterflies. Scorned by farmers, milkweeds are a diverse genus of plants, with more than 120 species identified, that co-evolved over the millennia with the butterflies.
“We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of acres of land that are virtually sterilized except for human food crops,” Brower said.
Conservation groups have encouraged people to plant milkweeds to help the monarchs. And in Mexico, where illegal logging has damaged some of the butterfly’s winter habitat, the Washington-based conservation organization American Forests has teamed with other groups to plant more than 900,000 trees in the past five years, said American Forests spokeswoman Lea Sloan.
But nothing is constant in any ecosystem. Climate change is driving wetter winters that leave soggy butterflies exposed to cold snaps, Taylor said. The butterfly population that migrated north this year was smaller than normal, he said, as is the number heading south. As they fly through southern Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and into northern Mexico, they are encountering areas hit by what the U.S. government rates as “exceptional drought.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/can-monarch-butterflies-make-it-through-texas/2011/10/07/gIQAEt8ySL_story.html
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Monarch butterfly lands in Dorset
Monarch butterfly turns up in Dorset
October 2011. A rare butterfly, normally found on the other side of the Atlantic, has been discovered on England's South Coast. The Monarch buterfly, a spectacular black and orange vagrant butterfly, was seen on Buddleia plants in Ringstead Bay, in Dorset. It is not known if the butterfly was blown here as a result of the Indian summer currently gripping the UK or was deposited by hurricane winds from America.
Small populations in Spain
Monarchs are large and unmistakeable with the majority being found in North America, but a smaller population survives in Southern Spain and on the Canary Islands.
Vast migration
Richard Fox, Surveys Manager at Butterfly Conservation said: "Monarchs are one of the wonders of the natural world. At this time of the year they migrate an astonishing 3,000 miles to their over-wintering grounds in mountains of Mexico. But storm systems on the Eastern Seaboard of America can pick them up and deposit them on the West Coast of Ireland and the Southwest of England."
The last few weeks have also seen many rare vagrant birds from North America arriving in the UK as a result of the hurricane season. The last good Monarch year was in 1999 when scores turned up in the UK.
The butterfly was spotted by accountant Shelley Cunningham, 24, from Yeovil and trainee wildlife guide Shane Austin, 39, from Taunton. Shelley, who three years ago was confined to a wheelchair, is walking the South West Coast Path to raise money for the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) who treated her for curvature of the spine.
Shane said: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the Monarch, it was feeding on Buddleia with around 20 Red Admirals. It's big and beautiful and doesn't look like any butterflies you see here, it is just awe inspiring when you think how far it has flown."
Shelley underwent three years of surgery to be able to walk again. She is five weeks into the gruelling six-week walk and has raised £3,000 for the charity Above and Beyond.
She said: "The BRI really helped me get back on my feet so this walk is to give something back, seeing the Monarch was just a fantastic added bonus."
Monarch butterflies in North America
Read more about the fantastic Monarch butterfly migration from Canada to Mexico.
For more information about monarch butterflies and their migration, visit www.monarchwatch.org
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/butterfly-monarch.html
October 2011. A rare butterfly, normally found on the other side of the Atlantic, has been discovered on England's South Coast. The Monarch buterfly, a spectacular black and orange vagrant butterfly, was seen on Buddleia plants in Ringstead Bay, in Dorset. It is not known if the butterfly was blown here as a result of the Indian summer currently gripping the UK or was deposited by hurricane winds from America.
Small populations in Spain
Monarchs are large and unmistakeable with the majority being found in North America, but a smaller population survives in Southern Spain and on the Canary Islands.
Vast migration
Richard Fox, Surveys Manager at Butterfly Conservation said: "Monarchs are one of the wonders of the natural world. At this time of the year they migrate an astonishing 3,000 miles to their over-wintering grounds in mountains of Mexico. But storm systems on the Eastern Seaboard of America can pick them up and deposit them on the West Coast of Ireland and the Southwest of England."
The last few weeks have also seen many rare vagrant birds from North America arriving in the UK as a result of the hurricane season. The last good Monarch year was in 1999 when scores turned up in the UK.
The butterfly was spotted by accountant Shelley Cunningham, 24, from Yeovil and trainee wildlife guide Shane Austin, 39, from Taunton. Shelley, who three years ago was confined to a wheelchair, is walking the South West Coast Path to raise money for the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) who treated her for curvature of the spine.
Shane said: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the Monarch, it was feeding on Buddleia with around 20 Red Admirals. It's big and beautiful and doesn't look like any butterflies you see here, it is just awe inspiring when you think how far it has flown."
Shelley underwent three years of surgery to be able to walk again. She is five weeks into the gruelling six-week walk and has raised £3,000 for the charity Above and Beyond.
She said: "The BRI really helped me get back on my feet so this walk is to give something back, seeing the Monarch was just a fantastic added bonus."
Monarch butterflies in North America
Read more about the fantastic Monarch butterfly migration from Canada to Mexico.
For more information about monarch butterflies and their migration, visit www.monarchwatch.org
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/butterfly-monarch.html
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