{"id":447577,"date":"2026-01-30T15:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T15:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/447577\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T15:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T15:11:15","slug":"monarch-butterflies-face-a-3000km-migration-can-they-survive-with-dwindling-nectar-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/447577\/","title":{"rendered":"Monarch butterflies face a 3,000km migration. Can they survive with dwindling nectar supplies?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n         Published on<br \/>\n            29\/01\/2026 &#8211; 7:00 GMT+1\n            <\/p>\n<p>Every autumn, millions of monarch butterflies embark on a treacherous journey &#8211; flying more than 3,000 km from Canadian fields all the way to Mexico\u2019s mountain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/my-europe\/2026\/01\/26\/europes-forests-where-are-they-growing-fastest\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">forests<\/a> for the winter.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a migration that attracts swathes of tourists, as crowds gather across America to marvel at the distinctively orange insects filling the sky. At the end of winter, these butterflies fly north to the US where they lay eggs on milkweed plants.<\/p>\n<p>For years, the monarch butterfly has shown resilience amid the growing threat of climate change. Despite being the size of a large paperclip, they have managed to survive through habitat loss, extreme weather and the growing use of pesticides. <\/p>\n<p>But now, there\u2019s a new snag in their epic trek &#8211; and it\u2019s all down to flower nectar.<\/p>\n<p>How climate change is impacting flower nectar<\/p>\n<p>Back in the summer of 2023, a team of scientists from the University of Ottawa started looking at the plants monarchs depend on during their migration. <\/p>\n<p>Published in the journal <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/gcb4.70001\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">Global Change Biology Communications<\/a>, the study found that a tiny increase in temperature (0.6\u2103) was enough to lower the quality of the nectar that these plants produced. Monarchs that fed on these \u201cwarmed\u201d blooms built up around a quarter less body fat than their counterparts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the warming that is making the nectar less nutritious,\u201d says Professor Heather Kharouba, who led the experiment. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven though the butterflies could eat as much as they wanted, they couldn\u2019t make up for the lower-quality nectar.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The study found that as temperatures warmed, late-season flowers produced less nectar, and what they did produce was lower in sugar.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018A wake-up call\u2019 to protect the monarch butterfly<\/p>\n<p>Scientists and conservationists have long expressed concern about the future of monarchs, but this study uncovers a more subtle risk. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re seeing that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/green\/2026\/01\/12\/europeans-psychological-bias-to-climate-change-risks-slowing-down-progress-warns-study\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">climate change<\/a> can hit pollinators indirectly, by degrading the resources they count on,\u201d adds Kharouba. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe the findings are a wake-up call for anyone working to protect these butterflies and, really, for anyone planting a garden or maintaining a park as the planet heats up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The study has been used as the focus of a new exhibition titled Flutterings: Monarchs and Climate Change. <\/p>\n<p>Curated by Canadian visual artist Val\u00e9rie Chartrand, it hopes to spark new conversations about how we care for creatures around us and demonstrate how art-science collaborations can \u201cdeepen public understanding of complex environmental issues\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 29\/01\/2026 &#8211; 7:00 GMT+1 Every autumn, millions of monarch butterflies embark on a treacherous journey &#8211;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,68,2929,4359,8167,19931,128,338],"class_list":["post-447577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-climate-change","tag-conservation","tag-global-warming","tag-insects","tag-migration","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}