美国鱼类和野生动物服务

Can the Monarch Highway Help Save a Butterfly Under Siege?

The population of North American monarch butterflies has plummeted from 1 billion to 33 million in just two decades. Now, a project is underway to revive the monarch by making an interstate highway the backbone of efforts to restore its dwindling habitat.

35号州际公路位于一个巨大的循环系统的核心,这是使美国人能够迅速移动长距离的大型运输动脉。高速公路还削减了东部君主中央飞行道的心脏,它产生了绝大多数辉煌的橙色和黑色蝴蝶,这些橙色和黑色蝴蝶受到了世界上最艰苦的昆虫迁移之一。

在从加拿大南部到墨西哥城西北陡峭的陡峭山坡上的冬季地面上,君主必须飞越包括明尼阿波利斯街在内的1,568英里河沿1,568英里的河流沿着许多大都市地区飞行。保罗,堪萨斯城和达拉斯 - 沃思沃思。今天,I-35走廊曾经是大草原,不仅是城市和郊区,而且还穿过玉米带,这是玉米和大豆单栽培的不断扩展的拼布,与除草剂草甘膦相连。根据奇普·泰勒(Chip Taylor)的说法Monarch Watch以及堪萨斯大学的一名生物学家,君主栖息地的丧失是“巨大的”。

从明尼苏达州到墨西哥的35号州际公路位于君主移民路线的中心。 

从明尼苏达州到墨西哥的35号州际公路位于君主移民路线的中心。

During the winter of 2013-2014, only about3300万君主到了他们的墨西哥山地庇护所,这是从1996年记录的十亿美元的惊人下降。学习去年出版的结论是,如果当前的趋势继续下去,越冬的蝴蝶数量会如此之低,以至于一场风暴几乎可以消灭它们,从而使迁移造成致命的打击。

To stanch the losses and safeguard the migration’s future, in 2015 and 2016 a pollinator task force formed at President Obama’s request发布报告that detail a major new strategy to rebuild the butterfly’s wintering population, mostly through aggressive habitat restoration in natural areas, along roadways, on utility right-of-ways and farms, and in parks, gardens, and schoolyards throughout a broad swath of land that runs for 100 miles on either side of I-35.

该计划的中心是将州际公路重塑为“君主公路”,在道路道路上创造了栖息地,同时采用教育材料(例如符号),以使驾驶者意识到君主和其他关键传粉者面临的困境。在2015年白皮书, Taylor sketched out a five-year plan for the massive restoration project, including two planting options and projected costs. In one option, two 10x100-foot plots of “plugs,” or small plants, would be installed on each mile of interstate, at a total cost of some $7 million. In the other, one acre per mile of roadway would be restored using seeds, at a total cost estimated anywhere from $2.8 million to $5 million. The plantings would include a variety of species favored by bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, including milkweeds, the only food source for monarch caterpillars. Over time the habitat islands would expand as an annual, late-season mowing dispersed the seeds.

高速公路边界被认为是野生动植物友好的东西。

一条带有刺耳车辆和持续din的州际公路对于下降的物种而言似乎是一个不太可能的避难所。高速公路边界种植有非本地草,定期割草,并用农药浸泡,而野生动植物友好。但是,君主高速公路的支持者现在考虑的改头可以将路边的档案转变为关键传粉媒介的黄金。

The concept is increasingly capturing the imagination not only of highway planners but biologists and conservationists around the globe.君主合资(MJV) - 由50多个联邦和州机构,大学和非政府团体的合作伙伴小路。”它也是迄今为止世界任何地方的“栖息地公路”概念的最大考验。

The Monarch Highway, says May Berenbaum, head of the Entomology Department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, “is both uplifting and daunting — uplifting because if it’s successful for monarchs it will also benefit other pollinators and it can be a model for other species here and elsewhere in the world, and daunting because there’s still so little known about the right-of-way way of life.” One of the biggest unknowns is the number of pollinators, particularly peripatetic monarchs, that will be killed by vehicle collisions.

在更好地理解福利和潜在危险之前,一些科学家认为,路边传粉媒介栖息地的支持者,尤其是君主公路的支持者,应谨慎行事。佐治亚大学生物学家安迪·戴维斯(Andy Davis)说:“建立栖息地的想法很棒,因为传粉媒介陷入困境。”“我只是不知道支持他们的路边栖息地的科学是否真的在那里。”

在January 2016, the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) published a set of最佳管理实践指导运输官员创建路边传粉媒介栖息地。举行了两次“运输峰会”,以使州运输部门的工作人员加快概念。去年5月,FHA和I-35的六个州签署协议推动他们对努力的承诺。上个月君主公路徽标was unveiled.

现有研究没有关于栖息地公路是否可能成功的明确答案。

今年秋天,泰勒(Taylor)与俄克拉荷马州交通运输部合作,计划在该州的I-35沿两个地点安装栖息地条,并监控种植园的健康及其支持君主和其他传粉媒介的能力。如果一切顺利,到明年秋天,他说:“我们将获得概念证明,我认为我们可以得到很多买入。”泰勒说,州运输官员正在竭尽所能促进君主公路,但“没有太多的联邦和州钱。”他说,个人,公司和倡导团体“将不得不推动这件事”。

现有研究没有关于栖息地公路是否可能成功的明确答案。在科学文献的评论研究人员指出,大多数关于道路生态影响的研究都不集中在昆虫和其他无脊椎动物上,而是鸟类和哺乳动物,尤其是诸如鹿和驼鹿等大型卵子,以及像佛罗里达豹一样濒临灭绝的猫科动物。

在第一个学习to examine highway habitat for monarchs specifically, published last year in the昆虫保护杂志,明尼苏达大学的研究人员发现,在明尼阿波利斯半径250英里的212个路边延伸中,约有60%含有乳草。他们发现蝴蝶利用了植物,但是乳草上的鸡蛋和幼虫的数量低于首席作者凯尔·卡斯滕(Kyle Kasten)称之为“五星级栖息地”,带有大量的花粉和花蜜来源,例如公园和后院花园。

明尼阿波利斯市中心附近的田野中的一只君主蝴蝶。 

明尼阿波利斯市中心附近的田野中的一只君主蝴蝶。Kyle Daly/USFWS

“It’s tough to put our finger on why,” says Kasten, although he speculates that one possible reason is the caterpillars are not as healthy as they could be due to vehicle pollution and pesticide drift from farms. The University of Georgia’s Davis believes that the deafening noise along busy roadways could be another factor.

虽然保护生物学家试图使其他动物尽可能远离汽车和卡车,但为传粉媒介培养高速公路栖息地却获得了可观的支持。可用性是上诉的重要组成部分。明尼苏达大学的科学家在他们的研究中指出,路边“占美国超过1000万英亩的土地,在许多州,它们是最大的公共土地持股。”他们补充说,在高度发达的农业和城市地区,“路边可以提供唯一可用于乳草的半天然栖息地。”

路边栖息地只有在人口增加的道路杀伤力增加时才能重建种类下降的物种。

There have been eight published studies examining collisions between vehicles and insects of any kind. The most emphatic point of agreement among these highway mortality studies, in which researchers walk so-called transects along designated roadsides on a regular basis collecting dead insects, is that further research is needed.

路边栖息地只有在人口增加的道路杀伤力增加时才能重建种类下降的物种。关于栖息地高速公路的许多乐观情绪来自几篇论文,表明在路边恢复本地植被的确会增加蝴蝶的丰富度,并且同样重要的是,丢失的个人百分比相对较小。例如,在2013年的论文中scientists walking 60 transects in southern Polandestimated that 6.8 percent of the butterflies they recorded were dead on the road. However, the Polish researchers also pointed to what they called a “conservation dilemma”: While higher-quality habitat boosts butterfly abundance, it also increases the total number of butterflies killed.

Whether the mortality rate on roadside habitat is higher for long-distance migrants like the monarch than their more sedentary kin is a matter of disagreement. As May Berenbaum has指出,尽管君主在年度秋季移民期间“偏离了几千英里的交通习惯”,但在仍在悬而未决的情况下,Roadkill被忽视了2014年请愿书向美国鱼类和野生动物服务局列出蝴蝶作为一种受威胁的物种,这是蝴蝶面的一小片苦难。贝伦鲍姆(Berenbaum)是唯一的纸评估车辆冲突对君主的影响。在2001年发表的该论文中,她和她的同事们估计,仅在一个秋季一周中,伊利诺伊州沿着公路杀害的君主人数可能超过50万人。在君主向南迁移时,在9月中旬观察到死亡率的高峰。

基于这些发现,安迪·戴维斯(Andy Davis)进行了一些后面的计算在博客文章中试图确定秋季迁移期间每年在中央飞行道中因车辆碰撞而杀死的君主的总数。他想出了大约2500万。他说:“这是一个惊人的数字,”尤其是考虑到近年来,只有3,300万君主才到达墨西哥。

Some conservationists say restoring habitat on every available landscape in the I-35 corridor is vital for the monarch.

Monarch biologists have been engaged in a heated debate of late over whether the major cause of the eastern monarch’s steep decline is the dramatic loss of milkweeds in the butterfly’s breeding range or an as-yet-unidentified factor killing them during their return trip to Mexico. Davis believes that road mortality is “potentially a huge problem that we are overlooking.”

Scott Black, co-chair of MJV and executive director of the Xerces Society, discounts the role of road mortality in the butterfly’s demise. It may be more of a factor in Mexico, he says, but “there isn’t a lot of evidence that roadkill is one of the major causes of the decline of the monarch” in the U.S.

鉴于到达墨西哥的蝴蝶数量的严峻数量,君主公路的支持者认为,收益不仅仅是为成本辩护。布莱克指出,君主迁移的状态是如此可怕,尽管在I-35 Roadsides上的恢复是“是难题的重要部分,但这还不够。”像许多君主倡导者一样,他认为,对整个I-35走廊的每一个可用景观的栖息地恢复的“全力以赴的方法”“对于维护君主移民的未来至关重要。”

君主蝴蝶的困境是一个更大的保护故事的象征,这是本地动植物毁灭性的生活空间。人类已经篡夺了如此多的野生动植物栖息地,以至于奇妙的动物迁移的生存至少在某种程度上取决于蝴蝶的重量超过纸剪辑的效果,可以忍受现代世界上最致命的环境之一。