Latest Asclepias Stories
Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Every year, hoards of Monarch butterflies begin their epic journey from Mexico through the hills of Texas to all points north, sometimes as far as Canada. Unfortunately, there will be fewer butterflies to take this journey during the coming months. It’s a trend that has been ongoing for about seven years or more and, according to Omar Vidal with the Mexican branch of the World Wildlife Fund, high temperatures and expanding...
Ensuring the monarch butterfly's survival by saving its milkweed habitat could result from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) studies initially intended to improve detection of boll weevils with pheromone traps. Charles Suh and his colleagues at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Areawide Pest Management Research Unit in College Station, Texas, have found a pheromone formula that is attractive to a major milkweed pest, the milkweed stem weevil. The discovery stems from research...
Dorothy and Leo Keeler are wildlife photographers and founding members of the International League of Conservation Photographers. Their newest project offers creative incentives to help restore monarch butterflies across North America. The Milkweed for Monarchs Butterfly Garden Project is posted on Kickstarter.com and is designed to help restore monarchs by offering creative gifts to people who contribute to their butterfly garden project and are inspired to create Monarch Waystations of...
A Texas A&M researcher has found evidence that the population of Monarch butterflies continues to shrink. Craig Wilson is a senior research associate in the Center for Mathematics and Science Education and a longtime butterfly enthusiast. He says, according to reports from the World Wildlife Fund, Mexico’s Michoacan State and a host of private donors, that the numbers of Monarch butterflies that cross the state of Texas will be dramatically reduced, by as much as 30%. These...
New research provides scientists with details about the migratory patterns of monarch butterflies and their endangered habitats. The Monarch butterfly (or Danaus plexippus) is a popular creature worldwide. Perhaps the most recognized and quintessential butterfly, the Monarch can be found as far south as Mexico and as far north as Canada. In fact, each year millions of these creatures begin their migration from Mexico to the great white north, breeding and laying eggs as they go. Most of...
Rising carbon dioxide levels associated with global warming may affect interactions between plants and the insects that eat them, altering the course of plant evolution, research at the University of Michigan suggests.The research focused on the effects of elevated carbon dioxide on common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca. Milkweed is one of many plants that produce toxic or bitter chemical compounds to protect themselves from being eaten by insects. These chemical defenses are the result of a...
TEMPE, Ariz., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- "You've just entered another dimension - a dimension of insects, a micro dimension, where milkweed bugs, assassin bugs, crickets and fruit flies crawl, walk or fly side by side to show off features that are the envy of the insect world and quite possibly beyond." This isn't the opening narration of the late 1950s television series "The Twilight Zone," but the introduction of a video announcing the 2010 Ugly Bug Contest. Last year's Ugly Bug Contest...
Monarch butterflies appear to use medicinal plants to treat their offspring for disease, research by biologists at Emory University shows. Their findings were published online Oct. 6 in the journal Ecology Letters."We have shown that some species of milkweed, the larva's food plants, can reduce parasite infection in the monarchs," says Jaap de Roode, the evolutionary biologist who led the study. "And we have also found that infected female butterflies prefer to lay their eggs...
Forget top-to-bottom only. New Cornell University evolutionary biology research shows how plants at the bottom of the food chain have evolved mechanisms that influence ecosystem dynamics as well. (Science, March 26, 2010.)"The ecology and interactions of most organisms is dictated by their evolutionary history," said Anurag Agrawal, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), the study's senior author.In food webs, predators help suppress populations of prey by...
Findings could be useful in development of pest-resistant cropsThere's a war occurring each day in our backyards "“ plant versus plant-eating insect versus insect-eating insect. Research by UC Irvine's Kailen Mooney suggests the outcome "“ of interest to farmers "“ is a stalemate.For a study published online Friday, March 26, in the journal Science, Mooney and colleagues studied 16 species of milkweed, a group of flowering plants found throughout the Western hemisphere.The scientists...
