Date: April 3, 2018
Source: Louisiana State University
LSU researchers have discovered a
new relationship between climate change, monarch butterflies and milkweed
plants. It turns out that warming temperatures don't just affect the monarch, Danaus plexippus, directly, but also
affect this butterfly by potentially turning its favorite plant food into a
poison.
Bret Elderd, associate professor
in the LSU Department of Biological Sciences, and Matthew Faldyn, a Ph.D.
student in Elderd's lab from Katy, Texas, published their findings today with
coauthor Mark Hunter of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and
School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. This
study is published in Ecology.
"A lot of global climate
change research focuses on a single species, and how that species will be
affected by climate change," Elderd said. "But we know that in
reality, species interact, and they are often tightly linked together."
One such species interaction is
that of the monarch butterfly and the milkweed plant, genus Asclepias. The
monarch is an obligate feeder on milkweed. Individuals always lay their eggs on
a milkweed plant, and the larvae only develop on various species of this
particular plant.
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