Biologists aflutter over just where monarchs are declining

Researchers scour volunteer butterfly-watcher records for trends

monarchs

MONARCHS IN WINTER  Declines in the numbers of monarch butterflies crowding into winter refuges in Mexico (shown) raise the question of what’s going on the rest of the year. 

Pablo Leautaud/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

A fuss over trends in monarch butterfly populations has flared up with a flurry of new research papers, all based on records from volunteer butterfly watchers.