The Ries Lab of Butterfly InformaticsPUBLISHED: STATE OF USA BUTTERFLIES
Today, Science published major results of our work with the USGS Powell Center “Status of Butterflies in the United States” working group, which found dramatic declines in many butterflies across the United States. In addition to individual species trends, the study concluded that total abundance of butterflies has declined by 22% from 2000 to 2020. That means that for every five butterflies seen 20 years ago, now there are only four. “Our study found that the total number of butterflies declined by 1.3% a year. That may not sound like much, but it adds up quickly,” said Collin Edwards, lead author of the study. “This is a wake-up call for the need to conserve butterflies and their habitat.”
Lab members Leslie Ries, Naresh Neupane, and Elise Larsen are co-authors on the article. Dr. Ries’ long-term collaboration with regional butterfly monitoring networks, including building thebutterflynetwork.org and pollardbase.org cyberinfrastructure, as well as developing translation tools between various taxonomic reference systems, were essential to this work.
While this is not good news for butterflies, it provides important knowledge of the breadth and depth of declines. These findings would not have been possible without decades of work by the regional programs we support. It is our sincerest hope that these results lead to new efforts supporting habitat conservation and protection from pesticides, which are key approaches to reversing the declines seen for so many species.