Monarch Migration Disrupted

Roseline Bello

October 2, 2019

There are plenty of species essential to our ecosystems globally. One of these species is the Monarch Butterfly, who because of human influence, now undergoes a change in their migration pattern due to climate change and habitat loss. Specifically, Monarch's were amongst the many insects who were recovering from a decline of about 80% prior to their comeback. This is, in part, due to humans adopting commercial Monarch Butterflies while taking care and nurturing them up until they are born and ready to flourish and explore the wild!

Despite this, however, humans are still unaware of the potentials dangers to this well-intentioned act. As a result, a University of Chicago graduate decided to look further into this. To do so, he gathered commercially bought butterflies and wild butterflies and raised their offspring for two generations, which ultimately resulted in a summer and fall group (Dudas, 2019). Additionally, for each group, flight behavior in a common insect flight simulation were tested for. 

From the spring commercial and wild butterfly population, it was discovered that the butterflies had a random flight pattern and flew in random directions, resulting in no real difference in flight behavior. However, both butterflies were composed of a very different genetic makeup, after running further tests. Additionally, the fall wild Monarch butterflies flew south, as expected, however the commercial butterflies continued to fly in random directions. 

The overall results from the study lead one to believe that the captured commercial butterflies have lost their sense of flight behavior. As a result, this can lead to turbulence in the flight behavior and overall migration of the Butterfly as a whole. 

Human influence on the environment plays a huge role on the detriment of species and their habitats as well as loss of biodiversity, a topic prevalent to both our ecology class and the study of ecology as a whole. I believe that although in this instance humans used their resources for good with respect to saving the Monarch Butterfly population from further decline, the capturing of commercial Monarch butterflies, who are later released into the wild, ultimately results in a disruption in the migration pattern for most, if not all, wild Monarch Butterflies, due to the random flight behavior of commercial Monarch's, which ultimately puts a dent, or hinders, the progressive evolution and upward momentum of positive changes in the environment overall. 

References:

Dudas, A. (2019, October 10). Monarch Migration Disrupted. Retrieved from https://sciworthy.com/monarch-migration-disrupted/.

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/6c3108f3-67a2-4d40-a584-b13e65df5b51.