The catastrophic situation of butterflies in the USA. “There are no signs to end”

America loses butterflies at an alarming rate. Insects disappear due to stronger insects, climate change and habitat loss. According to the latest research, their number has dropped by 22 percent over the last 25 years.

According to the first nationwide analysis, the results of which appeared on Thursday in the magazine “Science”, butterfly populations in 48 states fall by 1.3 percent every year. The situation looks the most serious in Arizona, Nowy Mexico, Texas and Oklahomie, where the number of butterflies fell by more than half in 20 years. As many as 114 of all species in the country show a drastic decrease in numbers, and only nine growing trends.

– The number of butterflies has been decreasing for 20 years. There is no signs to end – said the co -author of the study Nick Haddad, a entomologist from Michigan State University.

A team of scientists analyzed almost 77,000 scientific research. The results were terrifying. For example, in 1997, a 1.2 million monarchs of the princesses lived in the USA (Danaus Plexippus). Meanwhile, a analysis was carried out last month, in which it turned out that the United States was currently living in less than 10,000 insects of this species. The situation is so serious that officials plan to put it on the list of endangered species.

Many species that were on the verge of extinction reduced the number of 40 percent.

David Wagner, an entomologist at the University of Connecticut, who did not participate in the study, stated that although the annual scale of the population decline may not seem significant, it is “catastrophic and sad” in the long -term dimension.

– We are talking about losing half of the butterflies on the continent within several dozen years. The tree of life is shocked at an unprecedented pace – he said in an interview with the Associated Press press agency.

As the main author of the Collin Edwards study said, an ecologist and data scientist in the Washington department of fish and wild nature, it is estimated that 650 species of butterflies live throughout the United Staka, but 96 of them are so rare that they did not appear in any of the analyzed studies. In turn, 212 others were not found in a sufficient number to be able to calculate trends.

Haddad, who specializes in rare butterflies, said that in recent years he has been able to observe only two threatened butterflies of the species Neonympha Mitchellii Francisci which only live in a military post at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. This means that he is already very close to extinction.

Edward, in turn, also mentioned the decreasing populations of more famous species of these insects. For example, the number of Admiral's Rusalka (Vanessa Atalanta) fell by 44 percent Even the invasive Bielinek Raperer (Pieris Rapae) He lost 50 percent population.

The expert on butterflies from Cornell University, Anurag Aggrawal, said that these disturbing phenomena also put into question the future of another species – people.

– The loss of butterflies, parrots and porpoises is undoubtedly a bad sign for us, the ecosystems we need and the nature we enjoy. They tell us that the continent's health is not in the best condition. Butterflies are ambassadors of the beauty of nature, fragility and interdependence of species. They are supposed to teach us something – said the researcher, not involved in a new job.