Climate change poses a major threat to monarch butterflies, the distinct black-and-orange insects that travel in packs through the Midwest each summer, but new research modeling their future decline could help scientists protect them.
Seasonal weather conditions in two regions — springtime in Texas and summer in the Midwestern U.S. and Ontario — both breeding areas, determine whether eastern monarch butterflies will thrive in a given year, said Elise Zipkin, an associate professor of ecology at Michigan State University who co-authored a recent study about climate change and monarch populations.
As the climate changes, weather patterns will get less hospitable for the butterflies as they make their annual migration from central Mexico to the Midwest.