PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Monarch butterflies down again this year as decline continues, says Texas A&M expert

2012-03-22
(Press-News.org) COLLEGE STATION, March 21, 2012 – Unlike their colorful wings, the future of Monarch butterflies may not be too bright and their numbers are expected to be alarmingly down again this year, says a Texas A&M University researcher.

Craig Wilson, a senior research associate in the Center for Mathematics and Science Education and a long-time butterfly enthusiast, says reports by the World Wildlife Fund, private donors and Mexico's Michoacan state show that Monarch numbers will be down almost 30 percent in 2012 as they make their annual trek from their breeding grounds in Mexico and move across Texas.

The figures show an alarming decades-long decline in their numbers, Wilson says, adding that it is best "that we take the long view rather than yearly cycles.

"The latest information shows that Monarchs will be down from 25 to 30 percent this year, and that has been part of a disturbing trend the last few years," Wilson notes.

"Last year's severe drought and fires in the region no doubt played a part, resulting in less nectar for the Monarchs as they migrated south. But estimates show that each year, millions of acres of land are being lost that would support Monarchs, either by farmers converting dormant land for crop use – mainly to herbicide tolerant corn and soybeans – or the overuse of herbicides and mowing. Milkweed is the key plant because it's the only plant where the female will lay her eggs."

The loss of such lands is a critical factor in the Monarchs' survival, Wilson explains.

"Chip Taylor, who is the director of Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas, estimates that 100 million acres of land have already been lost that previously supported Monarchs," Wilson notes.

Most of the Monarch reserves are in the Mexican state of Michoacan. It's an area where Monarchs spend the winter and mate before heading north, Wilson points out.

In the spring, the butterflies leave Mexico and across Texas, and Wilson has noticed both eggs and young Monarch caterpillars feeding on milkweed in the Monarch Waystation, a butterfly garden outside his office. The adults will fly various routes through Texas, with the fourth generation eventually arriving in Canada.

This year, according to the Texas Monarch Watch, Monarchs covered about 7.14 acres of forest in their Mexican breeding grounds compared to 9.9 acres last year, and it shows a continued long-term downward trend in Monarch population since official surveys began in 1994.

Wilson says there has to be a national effort to save Monarchs or their declining numbers will reach the critical stage.

"We need a national priority of planting milkweed to assure there will be Monarchs in the future," he says. "If we could get several states to collaborate, we might be able to promote a program where the north-south interstates were planted with milkweed, such as Lady Bird Johnson's program to plant native seeds along Texas highways 35-40 years ago. This would provide a 'feeding' corridor right up to Canada for the Monarchs."

###Wilson says there are several websites to monitor Monarchs. They include http://www.texasento.net/dplex.htm, also http://www.learner.org/jnorth, and http://www.monarchwatch.org.

Media contact: Keith Randall, News & Information Services, at (979) 845-4644 or keith-randall@tamu.edu; or Craig Wilson at (979) 260-9442 or cell phone at (512) 636-9031 or cwilson@science.tamu.edu

For more news about Texas A&M University, go to http://tamutimes.tamu.edu.

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tamu.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

International Logistics Solutions, an Offshore Group Company, Becomes Certified C-TPAT Trade Partner

International Logistics Solutions, an Offshore Group Company, Becomes Certified C-TPAT Trade Partner
2012-03-22
International Logistics Solutions (ILS) has recently been certified as a partner in The Customs-Trade Partnership against Terrorism (C-TPAT) program. By participating in this important Customs and Border Protection Agency initiative, ILS will be making a vital contribution towards helping to secure the nation's borders, as well as ensuring the continued flow of international free trade. As a C-TPAT partner, the role of International Logistics Solutions (ILS) is to make certain that appropriate security measures, based upon risk analysis and consistent with C-TPAT ...

Low socioeconomic status means worse health -- but not for everyone

2012-03-22
Poverty is bad for your health. Poor people are much more likely to have heart disease, stroke, and cancer than wealthy people, and have a lower life expectancy, too. Children who grow up poor are more likely to have health problems as adults. But despite these depressing statistics, many children who grow up poor have good health. In a new article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Edith Chen and Gregory E. Miller of the University of British Columbia suggest a possible reason: some children have ...

Parents of children with cancer distrust and fear online sources of health information, study shows

2012-03-22
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Parents and adult caregivers of pediatric cancer patients prefer personal consultations with trusted health care providers over online sources for information about their child's illness, according to a University at Buffalo research study. Despite the accessibility of online medical information, the UB study found that parents not only distrusted information found through the Internet, they often feared what types of information they might encounter. "Respondents were telling us they were uncertain of the information online and that they were afraid ...

False killer whales use acoustic squint to target prey

2012-03-22
Hunting in the ocean's murky depths, vision is of little use, so toothed whales and dolphins (odontocetes) rely on echolocation to locate tasty morsels with incredible precision. Laura Kloepper from the University of Hawaii, USA, explains that odontocetes produce their distinctive echolocation clicks in nasal structures in the forehead and broadcast them through a fat-filled acoustic lens, called the melon. 'Studies by other people showed odontocetes have the ability to control the shape of the echolocation beam and it has always been assumed that they are using the melon ...

Getting in rhythm helps children grasp fractions, study finds

Getting in rhythm helps children grasp fractions, study finds
2012-03-22
Tapping out a beat may help children learn difficult fraction concepts, according to new findings due to be published in the journal Educational Studies in Mathematics. An innovative curriculum uses rhythm to teach fractions at a California school where students in a music-based program scored significantly higher on math tests than their peers who received regular instruction. "Academic Music" is a hands-on curriculum that uses music notation, clapping, drumming and chanting to introduce third-grade students to fractions. The program, co-designed by San Francisco State ...

Prenatal exposure to combustion-related pollutants and anxiety, attention problems in young children

2012-03-22
NEW YORK ( March 22, 2012) - Mothers' exposure during pregnancy to a class of air pollutants called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) can lead to behavioral problems in their children. PAH are released to air during incomplete combustion of fossil fuel such as diesel, gasoline, coal, and other organic material. The study is the first report of associations between child attentional and behavioral problems among school‐age children and two complementary measures of prenatal PAH exposure: monitored air concentrations of PAH and a PAH-specific biomarker of exposure ...

Nearly all states have taken action on Affordable Care Act's Patients' Bill of Rights

2012-03-22
March 22, 2012, New York, NY—As the second anniversary of the Affordable Care Act approaches, a new Commonwealth Fund report finds that 49 states and the District of Columbia have already taken action supporting the law's implementation, such as passing legislation, issuing regulations or other guidance, or actively reviewing insurer filings. Early insurance market reforms in the law include new rules for insurers such as bans on lifetime limits on benefits and dependent coverage for young adults up to age 26. The report, Implementing the Affordable Care Act: State Action ...

Majority of fourth graders are exposed to smoke, study finds

Majority of fourth graders are exposed to smoke, study finds
2012-03-22
AUGUSTA, Ga. – More than 75 percent of fourth-graders in urban and rural settings have measurable levels of a nicotine breakdown product in their saliva that documents their second-hand smoke exposure, researchers report. A study of 428 fourth graders and 453 parents in seven rural and seven urban Georgia schools also showed that the urban children were more likely to be smokers – 14.9 percent versus 6.6 percent. Additionally urban children have the most exposure to smokers: 79.6 percent versus 75.3 percent, according to findings presented to the 15th World Conference ...

Optex Announces PoE IP Encoder to Ease Integration of Optex Sensors with VMS and NVRs

Optex Announces PoE IP Encoder to Ease Integration of Optex Sensors with VMS and NVRs
2012-03-22
The new PIE-1 Alarm IP Encoder from Optex provides the dual functions of PoE power delivery to remote Optex devices and conversion of alarm signals to an IP protocol for delivery to video management systems or network video recorders. The PIE-1 provides support for Optex sensors in security systems using VMS and NVRs through vendor- unique API. The device can be used in a number of ways: - PoE (Power over Ethernet) only: to power remotely the Optex Redscan laser scanner provides IP alarm signals natively and requires no conversion encoding. The PIE-1 supports both ...

French Media Spotlight American Writer's Quest to Overhaul French Grammar

2012-03-22
"Erik Orsenna, dictator of grammar! Look, you're killing the French language!" the rapidly-becoming viral video went (OK, viral by French not American standards). Then the number 2 magazine group of France called "Le Nouvel Obs" picked up the story as did many literary websites (see attachments on right-hand side of this text.) Some of these press releases start with those very same angry words, the aggressive words pronounced by the author on the video against French grammar. The problem is that the author on the video is in fact an American ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Printed skin to replace animal testing

Precision medicine could be possible in the fight against antibiotic resistance

Researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University identify new targeted approach to protect neurons against degeneration

Western diet causes inflammation, traditional African food protects

Electrochemical method supports nitrogen circular economy

How researchers are shining a light on kidney disease

Some gut bacteria could make certain drugs less effective

PEPITEM sequence shows effects in psoriasis, comparable to steroid cream

Older teens who start vaping post-high school risk rapid progress to frequent use

Corpse flowers are threatened by spotty recordkeeping

Riding the AI wave toward rapid, precise ocean simulations

Are lifetimes of big appliances really shrinking?

Pink skies

Monkeys are world’s best yodellers - new research

Key differences between visual- and memory-led Alzheimer’s discovered

% weight loss targets in obesity management – is this the wrong objective?

An app can change how you see yourself at work

NYC speed cameras take six months to change driver behavior, effects vary by neighborhood, new study reveals

New research shows that propaganda is on the rise in China

Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans than their European counterparts, study finds

Novel genes linked to rare childhood diarrhea

New computer model reveals how Bronze Age Scandinavians could have crossed the sea

Novel point-of-care technology delivers accurate HIV results in minutes

Researchers reveal key brain differences to explain why Ritalin helps improve focus in some more than others

Study finds nearly five-fold increase in hospitalizations for common cause of stroke

Study reveals how alcohol abuse damages cognition

Medicinal cannabis is linked to long-term benefits in health-related quality of life

Microplastics detected in cat placentas and fetuses during early pregnancy

Ancient amphibians as big as alligators died in mass mortality event in Triassic Wyoming

Scientists uncover the first clear evidence of air sacs in the fossilized bones of alvarezsaurian dinosaurs: the "hollow bones" which help modern day birds to fly

[Press-News.org] Monarch butterflies down again this year as decline continues, says Texas A&M expert