Journeys…

Here is this week’s article of the week……Tomorrow I will have enough hard copies for everyone.  Please feel free to print this out if you want to get started tonight!

Article of the Week

Monarchs In Space?

By 250 News

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:49 PM

Prince George, B.C.- The Monarch butterfly, known for its distinct orange and black wings and migration patterns that see them flying from B.C. to Central America, may be heading on it’s wildest flight ever. Imagine Monarch butterflies getting a  ride on the next space shuttle expedition! That is exactly what the Monarch Watch group out of the United States is trying to achieve.

Speaking on the Meisner program this morning on CFISFM, Professor Chip Taylor of Kansas University says the experiment will see what happens when the butterflies are in a weightless scenario “Monarchs are very dependent on gravity to do a lot of things, not all insects are.” says Professor Chip Taylor. “That is going to be cool if we can pull this off. If they function well without gravity we will learn a lot, if they don’t we will learn something so this is going to be a very enlightening experiment.”

Monarchs are considered one of the wonders of the world as they migrate vast distances with extreme accuracy, “It’s almost as if they understood longitude and latitude” says Professor Taylor. He says we should remember man couldn’t even navigate the oceans until a sextant was invented.

“They have the most magnificent migration” says Professor Taylor who has spent the past 18 years studying the insect. In a good year, there will be about 500 million Monarchs in the eastern fly-way. The west coast population is smaller, and not as well known “We need to know more about what they’re doing in British Columbia. That population used to be about a million butterflies, it’s  down to 80 to  100 thousand a year.” He says habitat loss is the prime reason for the decline in population.

Taylor says the Monarchs are facing challenges brought on by a beetle outbreak in Central America. That outbreak is killing the forests where Monarchs winter. They are also challenged because of loss of habitat in areas where urban development is ploughing under the milkweed on which Monarch survival depends.

Monarch’s need milkweed and will fly long distances to find it.   They lay their eggs on the leaves of the plant, and the larvae eat the leaves until they are ready to form a chrysalis where they undergo metamorphosis, emerging as the easily recognized black and orange winged butterfly.

Monarch facts:

1.    migrates thousands of kilometres in vast numbers twice a year, a feat likely not performed by any other insect on earth

2.    has been observed flying more than 1 km above the ground

3.    is brightly coloured in both its larval and adult forms, a warning to potential predators that it is poisonous

4.    has recovered from population losses approaching 90 percent in the past but may not be able to rebound from the population levels to which environmental factors are now pushing it

There is a new special project underway called the Monarch Butterfly Fund, dedicated to conservation efforts, and will model their efforts on the successes of Ducks Unlimited. He has started his own program to try and offset the loss of habitat, calling on residents to plant milkweed on their private property in an effort to create what he calls “Monarch Way Stations”. The program is seeing success on the east coast “We have to do something to offset this habitat loss.”

Monarchs in Space – Classrooms Wanted!

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 5:25 pm by Jim Lovett

Filed under General | Monarch Watch Blog

WANTED: Schools and individuals (located in the U.S., east of the Rocky Mountains) to follow the development of monarchs on the International Space Station.

BACKGROUND The next Space Shuttle launch is scheduled for November 16th (Mission STS-129). Atlantis will carry three 4th instar monarch caterpillars supplied by Monarch Watch to the International Space Station (ISS) in a small rearing chamber. This chamber will be placed in an incubator onboard the ISS where the developing monarchs will be monitored. Still and video cameras will continually capture images, which will be made available online.

Monarch Watch will send a special monarch larva kit containing six 3rd instar caterpillars and artificial diet to participating schools. We will also provide instructions for creating a simple rearing chamber that will approximate the conditions of the chamber that will be transported to the ISS – microgravity not included

If you participate in this program you will be able to follow the shuttle mission to the space station and the development of the monarchs in space for at least two weeks.

Why are we sending monarchs into space?

Sending monarchs into space offers an opportunity to teach children many intricacies of monarch biology. Further, it will be instructive to see how monarchs function in a microgravity environment in which near weightlessness is the prevailing condition. As you will see in the companion guide (which will be posted soon), there are at least five stages during the monarch’s development where the absence of normal gravity could be a factor in how well they function. The observations made during this experiment will provide some insights concerning basic monarch biology and will add more to our knowledge of how organisms, other than humans, might function in space. It is a win-win experiment. If the monarchs cannot perform certain tasks, such as successfully pupating, we will learn something about their limitations but also that gravity is essential for this function. On the other hand, if monarchs perform all life functions normally, in spite of the near weightless conditions, it will tell us that there are aspects of the monarch’s nervous control and physiology that allow for adjustments under such adverse conditions.

Can we release our monarchs?

Releases are not advised. These are not migratory monarchs and it is already too late in the season. The next challenge might be to see how long you can keep your monarchs alive. They can be maintained at home or in the classroom on Gatorade for months, if relatively inactive.

Is this for real?

Yes! The space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift off on November 16th and to redezvous with the International Space Station two days later. We have worked with BioServe Space Technologies since April to develop a system of monarch rearing using the artificial diet that will work in transit and on the ISS. We have reared thousands of monarchs over the last 6 months on this diet. It works. The cost of the kit is low ($17.95) and doesn’t begin to cover all the costs we incur in maintaining the culture and producing the product you will use.

Respond to the following in the Article of the Week section of your binder:

1. We will be participating in this experiment!  However, some people are upset because they monarchs will not be able to be released as it is too cold for them to survive.  So our choices are to freeze them (killing them painlessly) or to try and keep them alive over the winter (finding them flowers and nectar).  Which option should we use and why?