Published August 24, 2017 | Version v1
Dataset Open

Data from: Monarch butterfly population decline in North America: identifying the threatening processes

  • 1. United States Geological Survey
  • 2. University of Arizona
  • 3. University of Minnesota
  • 4. United States Fish and Wildlife Service
  • 5. University of Georgia
  • 6. University of Kansas
  • 7. Iowa State University
  • 8. University of California, San Diego

Description

The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) population in North America has sharply declined over the last two decades. Despite rising concern over the monarch butterfly's status, no comprehensive study of the factors driving this decline has been conducted. Using partial least-squares regressions and time-series analysis, we investigated climatic and habitat-related factors influencing monarch population size from 1993 to 2014. Potential threats included climatic factors, habitat loss (milkweed and overwinter forest), disease and agricultural insecticide use (neonicotinoids). While climatic factors, principally breeding season temperature, were important determinants of annual variation in abundance, our results indicated strong negative relationships between population size and habitat loss variables, principally glyphosate use, but also weaker negative effects from the loss of overwinter forest and breeding season use of neonicotinoids. Further declines in population size because of glyphosate application are not expected. Thus, if remaining threats to habitat are mitigated we expect climate-induced stochastic variation of the eastern migratory population of monarch butterfly around a relatively stationary population size.

Notes

Files

FullThreatsData.csv

Files (12.6 kB)

Name Size Download all
md5:d57efd47da6b4f14ade3746f27be5370
12.6 kB Preview Download

Additional details

Related works

Is cited by
10.1098/rsos.170760 (DOI)