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Ecological niches in sequential generations of eastern North American monarch butterflies (Lepidoptera: Danaide): The ecology of migration and likely climate change implications
Batalden, Rebecca V. Oberhauser, Karen Peterson, A. Townsend
Batalden, Rebecca V.
Oberhauser, Karen
Peterson, A. Townsend
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Abstract
Eastern North American monarch butterßies (Danaus plexippus L.) show a series of
range shifts during their breeding season. Using ecological niche modeling, we studied the environmental
context of these shifts by identifying the ecological conditions that monarchs use in successive
summer months. Monarchs use a consistent ecological regimen through the summer, but these
conditions contrast strikingly with those used during the winter. Hence, monarchs exhibit nichefollowing
among sequential breeding generations but niche-switching between the breeding and
overwintering stages of their annual cycle.Weprojected their breeding ecological niche onto monthly
future climate scenarios, which indicated northward shifts, particularly at the northern extreme of
their summer movements, over the next 50 yrs; if both monarchs and their milkweed host plants cannot
track these changing climates, monarchs could lose distributional area during critical breeding months.
Description
Date
2007-12
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Entomological Society of America
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Keywords
Ecological niche modeling, Monarch butterflies, Climate change, Geographic distribution, Seasonal distributions
Citation
Batalden, R. V., K. S. Oberhauser, and A. T. Peterson. 2007. Ecological niches in sequential generations of eastern North American monarch butterflies: The ecology of migration and likely climate change implications. Environmental Entomology 36:1365-1373.