Why does the wild population have so much OE?

[texas butterfly]

Western

Eastern

Florida

Why are the OE rates so different for the different populations?

Seems that OE infected adults are producing OE infected offspring either thru rearing or wild.

Any studies?

[Paul Cherubini]

Western, Eastern, Florida Why are the OE rates so different for the different populations?

OE rates WITHIN the Western and Eastern migratory populations are as big in magnitude as those BETWEEN them.

Example: The percentage of both lightly and heavily infected monarchs at the southernmost West coast overwintering sites is almost as low as at the two largest overwintering sites in the mountains central Mexico http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/spore.jpg

Scientists cannot explain why OE rates vary greatly over a distance as little as 250 miles. Example:
about 30% of southwestern Oregon monarchs in Aug.1997 had high spore loads while none did in samples from northeastern Oregon or south-central Washington.

[Mona Miller]

It is very simply explained by those scientist in their research that I have posted.

The Monarchs that migrate to Mexico, if they have OE (heavily infected) they are weakened by the condition and don't make it. The Northern states have freezes during the winter. Outside OE is killed. We get to start fresh each year. 30% for California, 8% for migatory Eastern, 70% for non-migatory Florida.

http://www.uga.edu/monarchparasites/whatisOE/index.html
What is OE

http://www.uga.edu/monarchparasites/research/index.html
Latest Research

[Paul Cherubini]

It is very simply explained by those scientist in their research that I have posted.
The Monarchs that migrate to Mexico, if they have OE (heavily infected) they are weakened by the condition and don't make it.

"Don't make it" is speculation only. Sonia Altizer actually found the percentage of heavily infected
monarchs at the overwintering sites Mexico is the same as in Minnesota (she captured fall migrants in late August in Minnesota). She also found the the percentage of heavily infected monarchs at the overwintering sites in Mexico and California did NOT decline as the winter progressed; i.e they apparently did NOT die.

[Mona Miller]

I have not read the information that you posted in any reports that I have posted. Stop misleading people.

[Paul Cherubini]

I have not read the information that you posted in any reports that I have posted. Stop misleading people.

http://www.nappc.org/NAPPC_Resources/Mo ... ltizer.pdf

On page 134 Altizer wrote:

"No significant changes in the prevalence of heavily infected adults were detected among the periods of breeding, migration and overwintering in eastern North America."

and in the paper's abstract Altizer wrote:

"No differences in the frequency of heavily infected adults were found among eastern or western North American monarchs throughout the overwintering period suggesting that this parasite does not affect overwintering mortality."

[Mona Miller]

Anyone interested in reading the truth should go back and read the bottom of page 133 and the bottom of 134.

Read number 3 in the abstract on the first page.

[Paul Cherubini]

Read number 3 in the abstract on the first page.

In number 3 Altizer wrote: “Average parasite loads of summer breeding adults in western North America decreased with increasing distance from overwintering sites. This suggests
that heavily infected monarchs are less likely to remigrate long distances in the Spring.”

So Altizer is SPECULATING heavily infected monarchs are less likely to remigrate long distances in the Spring.

Moreover, the spore loads of summer breeding monarchs do not correlate well with the distance to the nearest overwintering site in a predictable, consistent way.
Example: Reno, Nevada is only 200 miles away from the nearest overwintering site and
yet the Reno monarchs had a low spore load:
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/reno.jpg
And Grand Junction, Colorado is more like 700 miles away yet it’s monarchs had twice as high a spore load as the Reno monarchs did.

Sonia Altizer hired me to collect most of these samples back in August 1997 which is why I am so familiar with this study and it’s results.

[Mona Miller]

I asked Dr. Altizer what she thought and she stands by the theory that Monarchs that are heavily infected do not remigate as far and those that are heavily infected do not migrate to overwintering areas that are too far away because they don't have the strength. OE weakens them.

Another factor would be whether the milkweed survives the winter. If an area gets cold enough to kill milkweed, then the milkweed which could harbor the OE spores is gone. Cold enough or droughts take out a lot of plants.

Then, there is the human factor. People are mailing and transporting Monarchs everywhere. Perhaps people are releasing heavily infected Monarchs and they are infecting other Monarchs.

[summerluver]

I just returned from Cape May, NJ, to observe the Monarch Migration, and observed the team members from the Monarch Migration Study tag butterflies. They weigh them, measure their wings, rate the width of their abdomen's, note general appearance for tears in wings, etc., and also took a sample for OE spores for study. They're correlating their results with another team in Georgia to see if there are different ratio's of the disease within the two populations. Should be an interesting read when it's published. I would imagine that their would be interesting conclusions about the smaller, sick butterflies if most were heavily infected with OE. If many of the tagged butterflies that are found dead in Mexico were noted to also be heavily infected, it would be an interesting to see the effect of OE on our babies. Especially if the Monarchs from the GA population yield the same results. I can't imagine that contrary to everything else in Nature, fincludeing the plants, bats, birds, etc., this creature can thrive and reproduce successsfully if it's diseased.

[Mona Miller]

They also note the sex of the butterfly so that will help correlate with the recent finding that OE may be decreasing the number of females in the population.

[texas butterfly]

I'm going to be attending a larvae monitoring class at the end of October.

I plan on sampling my population for occurrence of OE and other diseases.

Also, will try to find other populations in my area to sample also.

It sounds like it will be interesting to read the results of the two studies mentioned here.

[Paul Cherubini]

I asked Dr. Altizer what she thought and she stands by the theory that Monarchs that are heavily infected do not remigate as far and those that are heavily infected do not migrate to overwintering areas that are too far away because they don't have the strength. OE weakens them.

Dr. Altizer hasn't acquired field evidence to back that theory up (e.g. she hasn't collected hundreds of spring returnees from Mexico here in the USA to measure their spore counts. Maybe some have high spore counts which would prove they have the strength to make a round trip migration despite the OE.

Back in 1996 the San Diego based Monarch Program determined that the monarchs at the southernmost overwintering sites along the Pacific coast have very low OE spore counts: http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/spore.jpg even though they migrated only a short distance from summer breeding areas in and around Arizona. This fact contradicts Dr. Altizer's theory that monarch populations that migrate only a short distance will have high spore counts.

[Mona Miller]

Where is the rest of that report? Why do you keep posting a portion of a page? Why does data collected back in 1996 supersede current research? That data is almost 13 years old. What other factors should be consider? Terrain, distance, current number of Monarchs at the CA locations, current spore counts done by scientists. You have your own agenda. I can't rely on your research.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=w ... California
Almost 400 miles from Phoenix, AZ to San Diego, CA. Perhaps that is a more difficult trip for them.

The Monarchs do lose scales during the winter and also would be losing OE spores.

[Paul Cherubini]

Where is the rest of that report? Why do you keep posting a portion of a page? Why does data collected back in 1996 supersede current research? That data is almost 13 yeiars old. What other factors should be consider? Terrain, distance, current number of Monarchs at the CA locations, current spore counts done by scientists. You have your own agenda. I can't rely on your research.
The Monarchs do lose scales during the winter and also would be losing OE spores.

Dr. Altizer never measured spore loads of overwintering west coast monarchs south of Santa Barbara (and Santa Barbara is well north of Los Angeles). I told her about the Monarch Program's 1996 study that shows spore counts decline south of Santa Barbara and that at the southernmost overwintering sites, spore counts are almost as low as those at the overwintering sites in Michoacan. I cannot tell you why she hasn't cited/referenced this extremely relevant 1996 report in any of her publications. The 1996 report sampled the west coast in a more thorough manner than she did. The Monarch Program measured very low spore counts in the San Diego area and southward in monarchs captured in late November and early December - the EARLY part of the winter, before there is much scale loss. Again, it's not my research - it was conducted by David Marriott and Christian Manion at the Monarch Program in 1996 and they had no agenda.

[Mona Miller]

You did not address the questions that I asked.

You did not provide more than a small portion of that report.

You did not address the terrain that the Monarchs are having to travel through. That is mostly desert. Rough terrain. No wonder the spore loads are low. Any Monarch that could make it across desert area to San Diego would have to be in good health.

[Paul Cherubini]

You did not address the terrain that the Monarchs are having to travel through. That is mostly desert. Rough terrain. No wonder the spore loads are low. Any Monarch that could make it across desert area to San Diego would have to be in good health.

Monarch Watch tag recapture data shows the fall migrants born in the upper Midwest have the highest
probability of migrating to Michoacan successfully even though most of that Journey is through semi desert or desert. Example: At this very moment Journey North reports show fall migrants are most concentrated in far west Texas - a desert. And Gail Morris has been posting reports in recent weeks of monarchs breeding in Phoenix which is especially hot low desert. So I'm not aware of any evidence that monarchs have a tough time breeding in or migrating through the desert in Sept-Oct.

[summerluver]

Paul...give it up. I don't understand why all your posts are trying to prove why sick butterflies are really healthy, and why fields treated with pesticides and planted with genetically modified seed are also good for our butterflies. You should have this debate somewhere else in a scientific forum with other scientists that also have studies to back up what we're saying and questioning, not with Monarch Lover hobbyist's like us.

[texas butterfly]

Mona's response did answer my question.

[Milkweed]

Have you seen the research on the Cell Towers affects on the wild population of Monarchs?

[Mona Miller]

No. Do you have a web site that we can visit?

I did find an interesting paper on tropical milkweed and how it actually lowers the affects of OE.

http://www.uga.edu/altizerlab/Publicati ... AE2008.pdf
Host plant species affects virulence in monarch butterfly parasites

[Paul Cherubini]

I asked Dr. Altizer what she thought and she stands by the theory that Monarchs that are heavily infected do not remigate as far and those that are heavily infected do not migrate to overwintering areas that are too far away because they don't have the strength. OE weakens them.

Today on dplex-l Harlen Aschen of Victoria, Texas wrote: "I now know that there were a total of 32 adults netted for observeration in our pasture last Saturday.  What I found interesting, and others might, was that 3 of the remigrating adults were infected with Oe, all were faded and very tattered males.  When we were checking in the fall here along the bay, we found 2 of 40 infected with Oe, we were taking at random"

Thus we now have proof that some fall migrants with Oe are strong and healthy enough to make the roundtrip migration to and from Mexico. As you know, I have been the sole voice that has advocated releasing OE infected monarchs because they help the wild populations grow. Harlen's new finding substantiates my viewpoint.

[Mona Miller]

Unless those 32 adults were tagged in the fall, those tag numbers picked up in Mexico in the winter/spring and then those same 32 adults were relocated in Texas then I don't think you can say that you have proof of anything.

You are making conclusions from an inconclusive set of facts.

We already know that there is a nomatic population along the coast. We also know that areas that have year round populations have a higher level of OE.

[Paul Cherubini]

Unless those 32 adults were tagged in the fall, those tag numbers picked up in Mexico in the winter/spring and then those same 32 adults were relocated in Texas then I don't think you can say that you have proof of anything. You are making conclusions from an inconclusive set of facts. We already know that there is a nomatic population along the coast. We also know that areas that have year round populations have a higher level of OE.

The 32 adults that were captured on April 3 were netted just north of the town of Cuero, TX, about 75 miles inland from the Gulf coast. The Gulf coast in that area had temps into the teens last winter so few monarchs survived. Large numbers of monarchs arrived in the Cuero area during the last week of March just as they did further inland at cities such as Austin and even far west Texas cities such as Midland. For all these reasons, there can be little reasonable doubt the 32 adults captured near Cuero on April 3 were remigrants from the overwintering sites in Mexico. Thus there can be little reasonable doubt the three specimens that had OE were strong and healthy enough to make the roundtrip flight from the USA to central Mexico and back again.

We also know from my experiment of holding overwintering California monarchs in an outdoor screenhouse tent that overwintered monarchs with high spore loads can survive as late as early May:
http://saber.net/monarch/1c.jpg
http://saber.net/monarch/2c.jpg
http://saber.net/monarch/4c.jpg

Collectively, this evidence suggests some spring remigrants from Mexico that have OE are also probably strong enough to make it to the central, and north-central States by mid-late April.

[Mona Miller]

Monarchs can be released very early for butterfly releases in Texas. There are a number of farms in Texas, plus Monarchs from the East Coast are allowed to be shipped into Texas. Could your concocted OE theories have anything to do with trying to get the USDA to allow shipment of Monarchs across the divide?

Also, Harlen (lives near the gulf) just posted on dplex information about native milkweeds staying green year round and that some of these milkweeds grow on barrier island in the gulf. These could sustain a year round population of Monarchs.

[Paul Cherubini]

Monarchs can be released very early for butterfly releases in Texas. There are a number of farms in Texas, plus Monarchs from the East Coast are allowed to be shipped into Texas.
Also, Harlen (lives near the gulf) just posted on dplex information about native milkweeds staying green year round and that some of these milkweeds grow on barrier island in the gulf. These could sustain a year round population of Monarchs.

The 32 monarchs Harlen saw in one day (April 3) were all moderately to heavily faded, hence could not have been from commercial releases (butterfly farmers ship only fresh, young monarchs). The three males that had OE were "all faded and very tattered" according to Harlen. Another reason the 32 couldn't have been from from commercial releases is because Cuero is a remote little country town 75+ miles from any significantly sized cities. The particular spot where the 32 were caught was within a gated, privately owned remote pasture.

The 32 monarchs Harlen saw could also not have been butterflies that bred on the barrier islands because the whole coastal area of Texas had subfreezing temperatures last winter which would have killed the top growth of the milkweed and killed many caterpillars. Here is some temperature data for Corpus Christi,
TX:

Jan. 8: High 37 Low 29
Jan. 9: High 45 Low 24
Jan. 10 High 51 Low 27

On Jan. 9 it also got down to 29 degrees in Brownsville, TX which is a coastal town at the very southern tip of Texas

[Mona Miller]

All of those temperatures that you listed the Monarchs would have been able to withstand with overnight cover. You'd get the same faded looking Monarchs from those wintering over on the islands. Monarchs fade over time.

I'd like to know your motivation behind working so hard to prove yourself right. A theory must have sound facts, this one does not. You cannot prove 100% what you are stating. You can only propose. Could your concocted OE theories have anything to do with trying to get the USDA to allow shipment of Monarchs across the divide?

[Paul Cherubini]

All of those temperatures that you listed the Monarchs would have been able to withstand with overnight cover. You'd get the same faded looking Monarchs from those wintering over on the islands. Monarchs fade over time.

True, the adults could survive 24 degrees, but the milkweed plants and caterpillars could not. Thus the breeding population on the barrier islands would have been wiped out Jan 8-10. If a significant population of adults existed on the barrier islands, it would be common knowledge, lots of photos would have been posted, etc. but none have. One problem with the barrier islands is that there is virtually no tree cover. Go to google maps and look up Port Aransas, TX and explore the tree cover (lack of) up and down the barrier islands. I've visited the barrier islands myself once and saw the lack of tree cover first hand.

One insect pathologist, Dr. Harry Kaya at UC Davis, has co-authored scientific papers on OE
http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/faculty/f ... fm?id=kaya
and like me, he says that adult monarchs "do well" in spite of being infected with OE
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/kaya.jpg
Since OE infections are rarely lethal in wild migratory populations and usually have only minor adverse effects on survival, migratory ability and reproduction, OE infected adults help the populations grow. In California, in some years, the wild populations have grown 5-10 fold (500-1000 percent) from one year to the next despite the fact that 60-80% of the adults are infected with OE.

[Mona Miller]

But, if everyone followed your lead and raised and release OE infected butterflies then the wild population would probably suffer. We can propose all kinds of theories. But, in the long run, diseases similiar to OE, Aids in the human population, will not decrease the infection rate if Aids patients go about untreated, spreading the disease everywhere.

The facts are that OE is passed from mother to child. The fact is that those that are infected leave spores wherever they travel on host and nectar sources. The fact is that OE weakens butterflies and kills many other ones.

[Paul Cherubini]

You have your own agenda. I can't rely on your research.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=w ... California
Almost 400 miles from Phoenix, AZ to San Diego, CA. Perhaps that is a more difficult trip for them.
The Monarchs do lose scales during the winter and also would be losing OE spores.

No need to "rely" on my research. Gail Morris just posted her Arizona OE spore count findings. Her results show late summer and fall monarchs in Arizona have SIMILAR OR LOWER spore counts than the migratory monarchs passing through Eagle Pass, Texas in October. Thus we have independent confirmation that some west of the Continental Divide fall migratory monarchs have SIMILAR OR LOWER spore counts than east of the Divide fall migratory monarchs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Southwest_Monarchs] O.e. in AZ tagged monarchs
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 14:32:47 -0700
From: "Gail Morris" <gail-marie@cox.net>
To: <Southwest_Monarchs@yahoogroups.com>

This year I participated in Monarch Health monitoring the distribution of O.e. in monarchs. "Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) is an obligate, protozoan parasite that infects monarch and queen butterflies." You can learn more on their web page: http://www.uga.edu/monarchparasites/whatisOE/index.html

Before I submitted the samples to Monarch Health I screened all the samples on a microscope at home to be sure I was learning to read them correctly. (This was a "gift" from my adult children for Mother's Day last May!) I submitted 46 samples from Arizona and the returned results show the infection numbers were lower than the "predicted" infection rate of 30% for Western monarchs. Here are the ones that came back with O.e. presence.

Key: "In declaring a butterfly infected or not infected, we have a scale from 0-3. 0 indicates no spores, 1 indicates 1-10 spores, 2 indicates 11-100 spores, and 3 indicated >100 spores. Only a sample with a 3 is considered infected with OE." [ Monarch Health]

6/20 #325U Female - Wenima in Springerville 2
8/20 #205U Male - Silver Creek 1
8/21 #208U Male - Wenima in Springerville 3
8/31 #213U Male - Young 3
9/7 #220U Female - Phoenix 3
9/12 #221U Male - Canelo 1
9/22 #369U Female - Canelo 3
11/1 #481M Male - Phoenix 2
11/4 #483M Male - Chandler 3
11/8 #489M Male - Phoenix 3

I also tested 50 monarchs at the International Bridge as part of a tagging event in Eagle Pass, TX right on the Rio Grande. Their infection rates were higher than the number here in AZ but very similar to ours. Gail

[Mona Miller]

Keyword, "some". How many states are there in the West? This is data taken from AZ only for one year only. You have made a huge assumption on one data set.

No need to "rely" on my research. Gail Morris just posted her Arizona OE spore count findings. Her results show late summer and fall monarchs in Arizona have SIMILAR OR LOWER spore counts than the migratory monarchs passing through Eagle Pass, Texas in October. Thus we have independent confirmation that some west of the Continental Divide fall migratory monarchs have SIMILAR OR LOWER spore counts than east of the Divide fall migratory monarchs.

http://www.uga.edu/monarchparasites/whatisOE/index.html
This data is the results of samples taken from 1968-1997.

OE infects monarchs in all three North American populations. The eastern migratory monarchs have the lowest infection rate. Less than 8% of these butterflies are heavily infected with OE. More monarchs have OE west of the Rocky Mountains. About 30% of the western migratory population is heavily infected with OE. The highest rate of OE in North America occurs in the nonmigratory monarchs of South Florida. More than 70% of these monarchs have OE infections. The infection rates for monarch populations in North America have been constant for many decades.

[cocoonage]

Here in Wyoming rates went up with Mosquito spraying. It has since been outlawed...

[Paul Cherubini]

I asked Dr. Altizer what she thought and she stands by the theory that Monarchs that are heavily infected do not remigate as far and those that are heavily infected do not migrate to overwintering areas that are too far away because they don't have the strength. OE weakens them. .

Yesturday during her lecture on OE at the UC Davis Dept of Entomology I asked Sonia Altizer in front of an audience of about 75 entomologists: "Can we say that some of the heavily infected butterflies make a roundtrip migration from the northern USA back to Texas". Sonia's answer was: "Absolutely"

I recorded her with a digital recorder and can post it to YouTube if you do not believe me.

Anyway, this shows that everytime you put a heavily infected late summer monarch in the freezer, you're snuffing out the life of a butterfly that might otherwise live long enough to make a roundtrip migration to Mexico and contribute offspring that help the wild populations grow.

[blazing star]

I wish they would outlaw mosquito spraying here. I've been fighting spraying to no avail.

Why doesn't Monarch Watch take a position on OE and have a sticky as to how to manage raised butterflies with OE? I value Mona's information over Paul's but I do always question tampering with selected death. Maybe by releasing OE infected monarchs, the population will ultimately build up a resistance.

[Mona Miller]

OE has been around for years. Just be glad you don't live in Florida or other southern locations where it builds up so heavily that it takes an influx of fall migrants from the north to bring back the population.

[Paul Cherubini]

OE has been around for years. Just be glad you don't live in Florida or other southern locations where it builds up so heavily that it takes an influx of fall migrants from the north to bring back the population.

No one has shown OE kills a large percentage of the wild population in Florida or other southern locations. To the contrary, monarchs are abundant in Hawaii despite the fact that their monarchs have high OE spore loads and no "influx of fall migrants from the north." Ditto the semi-tropical latitude areas just south of Brisbane, Australia where monarchs breed year round and there is no "influx of fall migrants".

[Mona Miller]

These populations are small compared to the Eastern Monarch populations.

[blazing star]

Is there a website that correlates all data showing OE presence and death rate in various populations?

[Mona Miller]

http://monarchparasites.uga.edu/research/index.html
Monarch Parasite Research from the Altizer Lab

[blazing star]

This link is awesome. Thanks for posting it. It evidences that most monarchs infected with OE would not make it to Mexico, thereby weeding out the parasite from the overwintering population.

[Mona Miller]

Unfortunately, I'm sure that those OE infect Monarchs that travel from the coastal region to Mexico end up transferring OE to their colony mates. They are in such close contact, layer upon layer. They shed scales while in the sanctuary and those scales contain OE spores.

[Paul Cherubini]

It evidences that most monarchs infected with OE would not make it to Mexico, thereby weeding out the parasite from the overwintering population.

To the contrary, in 2000 Altizer wrote:
"No significant changes in the prevalence of heavily infected adults were detected among the periods of breeding, migration and overwintering in eastern North America."

[Mona Miller]

Sentence out of context again. Provide the entire document that you are taking that statement from. This is how Paul works. He takes sentences out of context.

Also, 2000 is 11 years ago.

[Mona Miller]

http://fwcb.cfans.umn.edu/oberhauser/pd ... 202000.pdf
Look at number 3, in the abstract. You'd think Paul would learn. He has posted this out of context sentence here already.

Here it is:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2048&p=10124&hilit=differences#p10124

Read it and weep.

[Paul Cherubini]

http://fwcb.cfans.umn.edu/oberhauser/pdfs%20of%20papers/Altizer%20et%20al.%20Host%20Migration%20and%20Parasite%20Associations%202000.pdf
Look at number 3, in the abstract. You'd think Paul would learn. He has posted this out of context sentence here already.

Number 3 in the abstract says: "Average parasite loads of summer breeding adults in western North America decreased with increasing distance from overwintering sites. This suggests that heavily infected monarchs are less likely to remigrate long distances in the spring."

However, they are not disputing the claim that some heavily infected monarchs DO remigrate long distances. Nor are they diputing the claim that heavily infected monarchs live a near normal lifespan and lay a near normal number of eggs and therefore help the wild populations grow.

Also the authors would NOT have found "average parasite loads of summer breeding adults in western North America decreased with increasing distance from overwintering sites" if they had sampled summer monarchs in Arizona because Arizona monarchs consistently have low OE spore loads even though Arizona is close to the overwintering sites in southern California.