Jan. 29, 2013
Calling attention to an article Shapiro wrote in the News of the Lepidopterists' Society, Berbeco pointed out that he "had always 'pooh-poohed' the notion that butterflies were disappearing, noting that populations will decline in response to disruptive factors such as development, but some losses were reversible."
Shapiro, who has been monitoring butterflies in northern California for more than four decades, says that climate and land-use changes have definitely affected butterflies. An example: the Gulf Fritillary butterfly, once thought nearly extinct in the Sacramento area for 40 years, is making a comeback due to the warmer winters. (See Shapiro's Butterfly World website).
"Shapiro's research demonstrates that anthropogenic climate change and habitat loss have started to transform our natural world," Bercero wrote. "As more data continue to demonstrate these trends, the arguments for action will become undeniable."
Read The Butterfly Effect (by Minda Berbeco, Ph.D., Programs and Policy Director, National Center for Science Education)
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894